Truth be told, this was a dreadful chapter for me to write. If it wasn't such a vital One Piece arc, I'd be very tempted to just skip it entirely. It was one of the most boring for me in canon, partially because Chopper himself is a bit bottom-of-the-barrel for me in terms of the Straw Hats. I still tried real hard to still make it a fun chapter, so I hope everyone enjoys!

Also, I'M SO FUCKING MAD! Miss Valentine – after probably a decade of not having one – got an official name in one of the Vivre Card Databook things! Her official name is Mikita! *Sigh* for fucks sake man. WHY?! In any case, after putting it to a vote on my discord, I have elected to keep the name I have been working with.

Chapterly reminder that if you review or PM me asking when I'm going to update, I will flat out ignore you.

I have a discord server! Come say hi! Discord . gg / 3ZwnRbh

ANNOUNCEMENT – Unless something drastic changes, this will likely be the last time this story does an arc (unless it's a short arc like Jaya) in a single chapter. From here on out, we've got a lot bigger arcs coming up like Alabasta, Skypiea, etc. Don't expect any massive 100k chapters. LOL

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Chapter IX: And the Mountain Comes Crashing Down

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Robin let out an involuntary groan as she woke up. Her eyes were lidded and even through her periods of unconsciousness, she was still feeling exhausted. Her sleep was restless each time she managed to close her eyes, plagued by dreams from her past. Her nerves felt inflamed and even light touches felt painful. Even the light sheets – the softest the crew had been able to find on the ship – still felt grating on all of her exposed skin. The first time she had woken up, Nami had needed to cut her old attire off. Her breathing was labored, and she knew she had to look awful at this point. And she knew the Princess laying in the bed beside her looked no better, though she already knew they were both afflicted with different diseases.

She opened her eyes as fully as she was able to, and it took more than a few moments for her sight to return. Initially she got nothing but flashes and pain as she tried to blink them away. The flashes remained in her vison for longer than normal for a regular person, and much more than it normally took someone as paranoid as Robin had learned to be.

"Robin…"

At the call, she managed to weakly turn her head and saw the concerned visage of the man she had chosen – and at this point she wasn't quite certain she regretted it or not – to follow. "C-Captain-san." She let out a feeble chuckle.

"Not feeling any better, huh?" His jaw was clenched as he spoke, "Same for Vivi. Her fever is still climbing."

"What is it at now?" Robin asked, before letting out a sigh, "And I still feel as weak as I did the last time." She managed to get out. He could see the frustration on her face as she tried to move and got barely a slight raising of her limbs for her effort. The mild hiss of pain that escaped her as the soft sheets shifted had him clenching his fists out of her sight.

"104." They heard Vivi mumble from her bed. Robin turned her eyes to the other bed, where the bluenette was fighting her own battle. She was flushed a light pink, and dripping sweat in rivulets. She knew the Princess's bed had to be as wet as her skin looked, "They've had to change my sheets three times already." Vivi looked as irritated as she had the energy to be, "And I still can't sleep." Indeed, there were bags that had no place on her features marring the skin under her eyes. She gave the dark-haired woman who had once been her enemy a shaky grin, "You look awful." Their shared misery was enough for her to toss a backhanded quip forward, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Robin just barely had the energy to chuckle, and even that caused her some pain, "Pot… meet kettle." She eyed Luffy, who she could tell was only putting up the smile at their attempt at levity. He was clearly incredibly worried about them, "R-ready when you are, Captain."

Luffy nodded and steeled himself, dragging the sheets a bit further up her body and wadding them so she could bite them. "Sorry, Robin." At his whispered apology, it was Robin's turn to steel herself, as Luffy slid his arm under her back and legs as gently as he possibly could. Even then, Robin still felt as if his fingers were tongues of flame, crawling on her back and legs. Her jaw clenched onto the wadded sheets and she let out an agonized groan as he maneuvered her into a sitting position.

She panted with her jaw clenched for a few moments, before she let the sheets fall from her mouth, "That was thoroughly unpleasant." As the greater pain faded, she idly noticed the lesser pain on her chest as Luffy made sure her sheets didn't fall below her breasts. She smiled dryly, "Not that I don't appreciate it, but it's rather late for that, don't you think?" She was rather thankful that Sanji had not been in the room when she had awakened the first time. She had been in such pain from the tight – and more importantly decidedly not soft – clothing that Nami had panicked and begun cutting before she even realized Luffy was still there. At the time Robin had not been in any state to care, but she was thankful that Luffy had respected her privacy by adjusting his precious hat to cover his eyes. And that, more importantly, it had been the captain and not Sanji to be there at that time.

"She's awake?" A new voice cut in before he had a chance to respond, and they all greeted Nami, Sanji, and Valerie as they walked in.

"Yeah." Luffy said softly, "Still like the last time."

"Strangely, I do feel a little better after being moved. Just like the last time." Robin told them. She still didn't have enough strength to even hold a spoon, but it was indeed odd that she always felt better after going through the agony of being moved. At least for a while, before she went unconscious again. It was the reason they kept moving her, rather than simply letting her stay sitting-up or finding a way to recline the bed.

"She's been awake for about three minutes." Vivi threw in, knowing that Luffy wouldn't have remembered. Her arm shakily pointed at the clock.

"Then she was out for about six hours total." Nami mumbled as she wrote that down. "Shorter than the last two. I don't know whether that's good or bad… but it is something." She looked at Luffy, "You were able to keep them comfortable during the last storm, right?"

"I tried my best." Luffy confirmed with a nod, still feeling far too helpless against the pain the two women were going through..

Vivi let out a weak giggle, "Luffy was incredible. At one point our beds jumped, and he managed to catch and stabilize both of us before I even noticed I was higher off the ground than I should have been." Oddly enough, Vivi found she was thankful for the flush the fever gave her face because Vivi was pretty sure her cheeks would be visibly tinged pink right now as she remembered Luffy's concerned face and his touch.

That got smiles out of all of them. Sanji stepped forward, holding a bowl of light soup in each hand. "I made soup for you both, ladies. I packed it was as many vitamins as I possibly could, given our decreasing supplies. I hope you're hungry."

"Famished." The both of them confirmed as Nami took one and went to Vivi with Valerie moving toward Robin. Thankfully neither patient's appetites had disappeared, because they both knew they needed to eat to keep their strength up.

Nami helped the younger girl sit up and sat the small tray she'd been carrying on her lap. Vivi gave both cooks and Nami a weak but still warm and very grateful smile before she started sipping at her food.

Valerie returned her smile brightly, always chipper even though they knew it was a front in this particular case. She was justas worried as the rest of them. "I cooked up some yummy desserts too."

She held up her hands, and this time Robin's eyes began to sparkle, surprising everyone in the room. "Is that a coffee cake?"

Valerie grinned in her direction, "An ice-cream coffee cake!" She then pouted at the other sick girl, "Unfortunately, we didn't have your favorite flavor, Vivi. You'll have to settle for vanilla pudding."

Robin gave her a grateful smile, "I am suddenly rather thankful that my mouth is not as hypersensitive as the rest of my body." The others bit back winces at that, yet also had to smile back at Robin's attempt to make light of her situation.

Sanji finally stepped forward with Robin's bowl, "The food is waiting for you upstairs, Luffy. I can take over here."

"No thanks." Luffy took the bowl out of his hands as the world seemed to freeze, the rest of the Straw Hats present looking all the world as if someone had slapped each and every one of them with a trout, "I'll go eat after Robin and Vivi are finished… and when we've decided what to do."

They all – even Robin, with difficulty – turned to look outside the open portholes. "The sky doesn't appear to be falling." Robin said lightly, a look of shock on her face.

"Eternal Pose and ship are still pointing in the right direction." Nami mumbled after taking the item out to have a look.

Valerie came up to Luffy and put a hand on his head, "He doesn't have a fever." She declared brightly.

"You guys are jerks." Luffy deadpanned as he started feeding Robin. Robin accepted the food with no protest. The first time they had to hand-feed her, the woman had been utterly mortified. Her! Nico Robin! A woman decried as a demon for most of her natural life… A woman who supposedly sank six battleships at the tender age of eight, was being hand-fed by her concerned crewmates.

The idea of being forced to rely on them for something as simple as sustenance was as humiliating as it was terrifying for her. And yet the threat to her life she expected never emerged, despite this literally being the best chance anyone had ever had at turning her over for her bounty or killing her. They most certainly could get away with it. Only three of their number had bounties of their own. Instead, she was cared for and doted on. Like she was really a member of their crew. Like they would do anything for her, just like they would do anything for each other. And Luffy had just denied food just to make sure she wouldn't go hungry!

It made her feel both a warmth that had nothing to do with the soup she was eating, and a chill that felt like ice going down her spine. Warmth because as much as she always tried to lie to herself about it, she had always craved a family from the moment her benefactor had promised her she would one day find them. And a chill because she had met their like before. Rarely. Very rarely. But she had occasionally gotten in with groups who didn't care about her bounty… and it always ended poorly. On the rare occasions where pirates had truly accepted her instead of just playing at it… they'd inevitably been destroyed by stronger crews or the marines. The World wouldn't allow her to be happy.

She was drawn from her thoughts by Nami who was turning from helping Vivi with a faint frown on her face, "Robin, do you have any idea what you two have? I know you knew about Little Garden before any of us did."

"I'm afraid not." Robin said quietly, "Much of what I knew about that island comes from old seaman's tales. Even I didn't know there were dinosaurs there. I merely knew that it was considered a death trap, and the reason Whiskey Peak's path was considered a dead end for the Grand Line."

They all had to hold back their own curses as Robin told them she didn't have the answers they were hoping for. Nami sighed, looking down at her hands. "You don't have any marks on you. We looked but only Vivi has one. An ugly purple bruise on the back of her left thigh that appears to be growing slightly." Nami was stone-faced as she revealed that bit of information, "I found it when I was helping her stay upright so she could take that cold shower to try to lower that bedamned fever!"

Even a man like Sanji could not muster up the will to be perverted in this situation. He took a solemn drag from his cigarette, "While you… well."

Robin swallowed her spoonful, "I'm aware." They had explained it to her when she had first awoken. A period where she was insensate with an even more hellish fever than Vivi. She was so dead to the world they had honestly thought she was brain-dead until the next stage had started, a truly horrifying thought. After that, Robin had gone into the throes of a vivid nightmare, the ghosts of her past attacking her. Slowly after that, Robin had stopped tossing and turning, and by the time she had awoken she had been like this; weak, hypersensitive, and with her mind and senses at times rebelling against her. The fever had not returned, but neither had her strength. And she would slowly slip into her nightmares again at some point.

Nami looked to be near tears as she admitted her helplessness. "This isn't like anything I've ever encountered! I've never seen a sickness like Robin's! Vivi's is basically ignoring everything I've tried! I've tried all the remedies and I know and even some old folk stuff I've only heard about just to try to get them under control. Nothing has worked!" He clenched her fists almost hard enough to make her hands bleed, "I don't know how to fix this…" She admitted in a whisper with her head bowed, miserably.

She looked personally agonized over their suffering, and Vivi had to take her hand in support. Robin was surprised to realize she likely would have done the same, if she didn't feel so weak.

"How far are we from Alabasta?" Luffy asked, eyeing the Grand Line natives seriously.

Robin let out a deep sigh, "Assuming we have all the luck in the world – and I mean absolutely zero storm delays or shenanigans like the ship turning around again – a week at least."

"That's too long!" Luffy declared, his voice masking the popping of his knuckles. "We have to find you two doctors now."

"Agreed." Valerie said, for once not wearing her happy grin, "Just one of you going down? That would have been one thing. Newcomers to the Grand Line get sick from the extreme climates all the time. But both of you? With two clearly different diseases? And Vivi clearly having a bite mark of some sort on her body to boot?" Nami had called her in the second she'd seen it. She shook her head, "No, this isn't the climates, or anything I've ever run into before. And whatever you both have I don't see you getting over it on your own, which is basically all we can hope for without some outside help."

"Then we need to change course." Luffy ordered, "We find them doctors as soon as possible. Do you know anywhere that could be closer?"

Nami bit her lip in frustration. Vivi really didn't need the added stress that this bit of information – which she had discovered literally that morning – would inevitably bring, but all the same she knew Vivi would be furious with her if she didn't mention it. She wormed her bottom lip for a moment longer as she weighed the consequences, and then spoke up, "While I agree…" She hesitated as the rest of them looked at her. Finally, she sighed in defeat and strolled over to her desk, "I think Vivi needs to see this first…" She placed the folded paper into the bluenette's hands. "It was in the morning's paper, Vivi. I know you don't need to read this right now and it's not going to change our course of action, but you still need to see it."

Vivi hesitated for a moment, before flipping it open to read. The rest of them stood behind her to read while Robin used one of the few powers available to her in her state and opened an eye on Vivi's forehead. Soon enough, a collective of curses and gasps rang out from the crew, "Three-hundred thousand?!"

"I'm sorry for not telling you, Vivi." Nami looked down, "That paper is from three days ago… We can't make the ship go any faster and I didn't want you just worrying."

"Oh no…" Vivi looked utterly horrified by what she was reading, "So many… How could so many of the royal soldiers defect? This changes everything! The rebels outnumber the loyalists by more than two to one now! Over a million of my people are going to slaughter each other in a senseless conflict!"

"They're playing right into Crocodile's hands." Robin closed her eyes, "I'm sorry, Vivi." She said the young woman's name for once.

Vivi bit her lip, "This changes everything! We have to stop them! We need to stop this meaningless bloodshed as soon as possible!"

"Vivi." Everyone stiffened as Luffy used that voice, "I understand you have a heavy burden on your shoulders…" He began as he placed a hand on her shoulder, "But I will not risk either of your lives. We don't know exactly what is wrong with Robin or if she will just get better, but I've heard the others say a fever like yours is really dangerous and it hasn't stopped climbing!"

Nami took over, "We refuse to arrive at Alabasta without you. We may as well not even go. We're doing this for you." There was a lot of emotion in her gaze as she gazed at the Princess. Vivi was scrunching up her face as her emotions threatened to boil over. What had she done to deserve friends like these?

"I can do a lot of things. I can kick Crocodile's ass. We can stop Baroque Works." Luffy continued as he took her hand, "But we can't stop the two armies. We're just pirates. We don't know them… we just care about you."

Vivi looked at them, before smiling in defeat, "You're right… and thank you." Her smile turned warm, "If you think that's the best course Captain… we won't argue."

Luffy smiled back at her, not noticing as the red on her cheeks intensifying a little bit. But before he could repeat his question from earlier, Nami stiffened and rushed to the open porthole and stuck her arm outside, "Shit! STATIONS! NOW! VALERIE YOU STAY AND KEEP THEM SAFE! LUFFY, WE'LL NEED YOU!" She was out the door in a blur, followed by Luffy and Sanji.

They watched as the ship turned and stared out the porthole as – out of the blue – the skies darkened and filled with clouds in what appeared to be a mere instant. And then… an absolutely massive cyclone formed right in their viewing angle. Even Robin couldn't contain her shock, "We were sailing right into that…" She breathed out, feeling light as she gaped, wide-eyed out the porthole that was set against the far wall from the beds.

"Just from feeling the air?" Vivi's eyes were wide with shock, "She was able to tell… just from a light breeze from the open porthole? Cyclones happen with zero warning on the Grand Line, and yet she predicted it as though she was predicting the moon coming up… I've never seen a navigator like Nami-chan…"

"She's amazing! It was like she could feel the danger coming in her bones!" Valerie yelled out, pale but smiling brightly as the cyclone left their sight, the new scene outside showing the same pristine sky they had been enjoying moments before. An idle thought of how high such winds could carry her came to her then, and she bit back an inappropriate guffaw. 'I'd really among the clouds then, wouldn't I? Like an angel in the sky.'

"Yes…" Robin was still feeling stupefied, "That kind of talent… that's generational. Maybe even multi-generational."

Slowly, some of the crew shuffled back in. Luffy had his own food with him, although the girls in the room were also pretty sure at least half of what Nami was carrying was for him too. Sanji stayed outside this time, while Zoro came in instead. As Luffy was eating, Zoro spoke for them both, "We decided to sail against the Log Pose huh? What are we searching for?"

"Any island." Valerie said, getting a nod from Vivi.

"No… one… in particular." Robin said, though they noticed she was… slower. More lethargic. Sleep would come soon, she knew. "Word is the doctors of Drum Island are phenomenal… they're our best hope. And luckily, they're not too far off the path from Little Garden to Alabasta." She frowned, "I do wish I had grabbed more Eternal Poses than just the ones I thought I might need. We wouldn't have to play a guessing game with the weather. Which direction did we turn?"

"South." Nami replied immediately, paying close attention to the log pose even as she sat conversing with the others., "We travelled about twenty-six hours away from Little Garden in Alabasta's heading at about nine knots."

"Fast." Robin smiled appreciatively, "Faster… than I thought… was possible for a caravel. So, we travelled about two-hundred-and-seventy miles before turning south… good. That's lucky. Continue on that path and… search for colder weather. D…Drum is a Winter Island."

"Gotcha! You can count on me!" Nami declared, clutching a fist in front of her in determination.

"We're pretty lucky to have you on board, huh, weather witch?" Zoro asked with a smirk on his face, but it dropped quickly when Robin didn't respond. Her eyes were starting to glaze over, and her head was starting to droop. "Shit."

"At least we were able to feed her." Valerie said, though she stared sadly at the uneaten cake. Robin had never been able to have any of it. "I'll go keep it fresh for her when she wakes up again." She said with purpose before walking out.

Zoro and Luffy glanced at each other, "Let's find Drum on the double!" Luffy carefully adjusted Robin once more so she was laying down, grateful that she couldn't seem to feel the pain in this almost-vegetative state.

"I'll keep them company." Nami told him before giving him a peck on the neck, "Go! I'll keep an eye on the Log Pose and come if we need to change our heading again."

When it was just the three of them, Nami sat down and took Vivi's hand, "Don't worry Vivi… we'll find you two doctors and we'll have you in Alabasta in a jiffy."

Vivi smiled back and squeezed weakly, keeping the pain from the fever out of her face with difficulty. "I know… I can always count on you guys…"

-]|[-

"They changed direction." Miss Goldenweek said lackadaisically, looking away from the periscope. They were in a waterproof submersible of Mr. 3's own design, made quickly through the use of his Devil Fruit powers. It was how they were always able to follow their targets without being seen, and one of the benefits from Mr. 3's years of dedication in educating himself. Miss Goldenweek liked it because it looked like a little kid's bathroom toy, and she had painted every single thing within it bar Mr. 3 in matching bright colors.

Of course, it did require him to be awake and concentrating his wax to keep the sub moving at all times so Mr. 3 himself looked exhausted. They couldn't even think of going too low in the water, either, so they had to pay special attention to try to avoid any storm they could. Which is why they were really happy that they were following the Straw Hats about ten seconds after Miss Goldenweek's announcement.

Mr.3 looked away from his own periscope, "Feh, how lucky for them. Even my creation would have sank if that cyclone had appeared later." The sweat dripping from his brow was quickly wiped away, "I do wonder why they decided to change directions though. They've been consistent in speeding towards Alabasta this whole time. Perhaps one of them got sick on that deathtrap of an island." He eyed the wall of Eternal Poses he always brought with him. "Which one will they hit, I wonder?"

"That one!" Miss Goldenweek pointed before resuming her cracker munching.

Mr. 3 eyed it carefully, before glancing through the periscope once more, before trying to see if there was a closer match. "Looks like there are three possibilities based on the direction, though you're right that Drum is the most likely option." He rubbed his chin, "Jog my memory, Miss Goldenweek. Wasn't there some upheaval in Drum recently?"

"Dunno." The girl continued munching away at her crackers, uncaring at the daggers shooting at her from her partner's eyes.

"Brat." Mr. 3 huffed, "I can't quite recall the details. We've never had a presence in Drum, but I do remember hearing that something happened there. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage."

"Why bother?" She stared at him, before glancing at her cup of tea, and staring at him once more. Their staring contest continued for a few moments, before he growled and used his wax to push the cup to her hands. She took a sip with a pleased hum, before continuing, "It's a Winter Island and your wax is white. You won't even have to try to hide your traps."

Mr. 3 paused, before a smirk stretched across his lips, "Hmm… yes, you're quite right." He grabbed his own cup and began to sip, "Still, no reason to not have a backup plan. I can't imagine they'll have the same welcome they got in Whiskey Peak. I'm sure the people could be… nudged into helping us." She didn't respond, going back to enjoying her lazy day. A vein started to twitch on his head, "One day, you damn brat…" He let the threat hang, though she simply continued to ignore him.

-]|[-

"Still no land…" Valerie muttered as she landed. "But we have to be getting closer now! The snow has been coming down heavy for a while already!" She beamed as she looked around the deck. They had found what they were looking for in terms of climate – though they had to change directions a few times, essentially playing a real-life version of the kid's game 'Hot and Cold' before they turned into the Winter Island's climate in full – though they had yet to actually find what they were looking for. A day had passed and at this point Vivi looked like a zombie. She was exhausted and yet every time she tried to actually sleep, she would jerk awake as if shocked. The poor girl was miserable, and her temperature had climbed almost to 105 degrees. Robin had continued in much the same way she had been, with no real noteworthy changes, but the intervals between her waking up and her going back to sleep were becoming shorter.

"Hey Val." Zoro called out from the crow's nest. He was covered in snow and had a deadpan look on his face, "So you didn't see any land, huh?"

"No?" Valerie had a puzzled look on her face, "I just said that! Pay attention!"

"Now I realize that it isn't an island…" He pointed in a direction, "But don't you think a guy standing on the water would be worth a shout at least?"

"Are you drunk?" Everyone tilted with question marks flying over their heads, before they turned and went over to the front of the ship. They all rubbed their eyes to try to erase the mirage. It remained there. They continued staring.

"Huh… that's kinda cool." Luffy mumbled, "He's not using Geppō like Nami used to, that's for sure."

Valerie was cringing, "Jeez, who the hell was his stylist? How gauche can a person be?" The man in question wore a checkered, jester-like green-blue costume with purple lining at the end of the sleeves. His pants were dark green. He also had a white winter cape with purple lining tied against his chest, and a light-brown bow and an arrow quiver slung on his back. He seemed to have a perpetually-sad expression on his face, made near-comical by the wavy shape of his lips.

"Really? That's what you're focusing on?" Usopp gave her a light chop on her head, "How about the fact that he's standing on the stupid ocean?"

The man spoke, "Boy… sure is cold huh?"

Valerie suddenly shivered, "Huh, now that you mention it…"

"Yeah, it is pretty chilly." Usopp concurred.

"Really? I don't feel anything?" Luffy scratched his head, getting dry looks from most of his crew.

"How the hell are you parading about in just that cardigan?" Valerie tossed his way.

"Really?" The man cut across their talk, looked surprised.

Everyone just went back to staring at each other.

Beat.

And then water exploded upwards in front of them, rocking Merry and sending her back a couple meters in the wrong direction. And if the slew of swears coming from inside were any indication, Nami and Sanji were not happy with what that might have done to the two sick members of their crew had they not been in the room with them. The object that caused the eruption of water was clearly some sort of ship, looking much like a gourd in appearance with a giant mast sticking out of the top. As they watched, 'clangs' and 'clanks' rang out from the ship as the 'shell' broke away from the main body, revealing a round, wooden body. Dozens of sneering men stared down at them.

Nami burst out from inside the ship with an angry face, "Alright, what the hell do you guys…" She stopped as the sounds of cocking reached her ears. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before staring flatly at the man staring lecherously at her, "You have roughly until I finish this sentence to get that out of my face."

But before she could act, a voice rang out. "Ma, ma, don't get all eager, you silly hippos." He had a vaguely nasally-sounding voice, with a tiny bit of a rasp to it. Just the sound of it had eyes twitching on the Straw Hat's side, and that wasn't even counting the words. The man in question had what looked to literally be a tin jaw and wore yet more tin as armor. He was incredibly fat, looking almost balloon-like due to sheer girth. He wore a cape made of a furry hippo's skin.

He was also eating a sword with a leg of meat on it. Yes, blade included.

Valentine cringed as she saw him chew the metal, "Alright. Check please. I want off this ride."

"My mouth hurts just looking at it." Usopp winced with every bite.

"Five of you huh?" The man continued as if he hadn't heard a word, "Can't be just five of you on a ship this size." He shrugged as he threw the hilt into his gaping maw, "Oh well, doesn't really matter. I have a question; Any of you have a Log Pose or an Eternal Pose to Drum Island? We've been searching for it for a while now."

"No." Nami said flatly, "Or at least not one pointing to said island. Ours is still locked to Little Garden."

"So get off my ship." Luffy said, glaring at the man, "We're in a hurry and you're in the way."

"Ma, ma, I told you there wasn't a need to rush, right? If you don't have what we need we'll just take your treasure and your ship instead." He eyed Valerie and Nami up and down, making them go stone-faced, "You know what, I'll take the girls too. Get to it, men!" And without so much as a care in the world, he turned around and his suddenly huge mouth bit right into Merry and ripped off a giant chunk.

"Right. That's it." Nami's – and everyone else's, truthfully – rage boiled over in an instant. She blurred from sight and appeared above a now wide-eyed tin asshole with her staff held high. She crashed down and smashed Wapol so hard his head impacted straight down into his flabby chest.

"YOUR MAJESTY?!" The weirdo who had been standing on the water and another one who had a massive black afro (along with three smaller ones on his chin for a beard) squealed in shock, "GET THEM!" All of the soldiers aimed their weapons and prepared to fire, only to lose every single one of them as Zoro flashed in their midst.

When he came to a stop, dozens of men went down in puddles of blood, flying from the deck and into the drink below. For once, the same miasma of death that usually engulfed Kitetsu III was surrounding him, with the man and the demonic sword in full agreement. "The Captain told you to get the hell off our ship." He said darkly.

"You!" The two stepped back in shock, only for their eyes to bug out as Luffy kicked every single one of them off Merry and back onto their own ship so quickly it appeared to happen simultaneously.

All except for Wapol. Valerie had a dark, ugly smirk on her fist as she sashayed forward, "Don't worry, your majesty…" She cooed as the apparent king managed to remove his head from his chest cavity. He had little hippos with wings flying around his head and he stumbled around woozily, "I'll be real gentle for you…" She clenched her parasol hard as she planted a foot, "10k Kilo Home Run!" She roared before swinging with all her might. Her parasol crashed into his ugly mug with all the grace of a koala, cracking his jaw and sending the tin tyrant flying far and away until he was a mere twinkle in the sky.

"YOUR MAJESTY!" The rest of the idiots screeched in horror as they stared at their flying liege, "FOLLOW HIM! FOLLOW KING WAPOL! HIS MAJESTY IS A HAMMER! WE HAVE TO SAVE HIM!"

The one with the afro roared back at them as they sailed away, "We'll get you for this! Mark my words, you damned pirates!"

"Hmph!" Nami threw her hair back, "Asshole. As if we'd remember your ugly mugs." She turned to the rest, "Are we close?" She asked anxiously, eyeing their surroundings.

"We haven't seen land yet, but it has to be close, given the way they were talking." Valerie replied with a smile.

"Yeah, the weather isn't even dependably undependable anymore." Usopp growled through the nails in between his teeth. He had taken it upon himself to fix any damage the Going Merry incurred during their journey.

"Good swing, by the way!" Luffy grinned as he clapped her on the shoulder, "Did you manage to make the umbrella heavier?"

"Kyahahaha! Oh heavens, no." Valerie giggled, "I probably would have gone flying with him if I did." She held it up, and they were disappointed to see that the parasol was hanging together by a splinter at best. "I'll need that new one asap, longnose-kun."

"I'll get on it as soon as I can." Usopp promised, "Merry takes priority here, unfortunately. Stupid big-mouth. Who the hell does he think he is, eating our ship?"

"Devil Fruits are weird, have I mentioned that recently?" Nami groused as she rubbed the damage, as if that could possibly make Merry feel better, "What kind of fruit just lets you eat stuff?"

"Kyahahaha!" Valerie started giggling again, "They can be pretty strange, and I can't even say that's the weirdest one I've ever seen! Why, there was one that-"

"Sorry to cut you off, because that actually sounds interesting." Zoro grinned as he shouted down from the crow's nest once more, "But I've got something more important for us to focus on. Land ho!"

At his shout those below all rushed to the front of the ship and started beaming as the tall mountain peaks of the coming island just barely started peaking at them over the horizon.

…

There were hundreds of evergreens around the river they were sailing up. The mountains – which had been fun to look at from outside – suddenly didn't seem so fun. They were massive. They had to each reach kilometers into the sky, nearly pushing through some of the clouds. Each was conical with a wide base with a massive plateau topping each off. What appeared to be a castle topped off the largest of the spires.

"Look! That waterfall must be melted snow!" Luffy pointed out, a childlike grin on his face.

"Ack! Wait a minute! If this is a snow island, then maybe there are snow monsters here!" Usopp keeled over, a hand pressed to his chest, "Ack! My I-can't-go-on-this-island-it is actin-"

Nami dope-slapped him, sending him crashing to the deck, "Pipe down Usopp. Now is not the time."

"Agreed." Sanji stated with his arms crossed, "We're not here for fun or adventure. We're here to find the ladies a doctor. We don't have the time to play around."

"So, who is going ashore?" Usopp dragged himself to his feet, almost hoping it wouldn't be him.

But before anyone could answer, they suddenly heard the sounds of dozens of guns cocking, "Turn your ship around, Pirates! You're not welcome here!" A loud voice rang out. From the cliff-banks surrounding them, armed, steely-eyed men glared.

"And how do you expect us to turn a ship around in a narrow channel like this?" Nami deadpanned, making some of them sweatdrop as they realized she was right, "Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to."

And they stiffened right back up, "Even so! This is our country! Pirates are not welcome here! Raise your anchor and go or we'll blast you!" One of them yelled out.

Luffy stepped forward, "If you don't want us to land, that's fine." He said calmly, "But please send us a doctor! We have two sick crew members aboard! They might die if we don't get them help!"

"LIAR!" One of the men's nerves failed him, and he fired right at Luffy's head.

Luffy vanished and appeared in front of the man, a dark gaze on his face. Yells of panic rang out as men scrambled to separate and point their weapons at him. Luffy grabbed the backpedaling man-who-fired's gun and prevented him from going any further. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" The biggest man in the bunch yelled, a bead of sweat running down his face. He hadn't even seen the Straw-Hatted Captain move.

Luffy held the trembling man's gun while staring into his eyes, "Guns aren't toys." He said quietly, and the man seemed to almost have a panic attack, falling backwards and letting go of the weapon. Luffy held it in front of him, "Don't hold one again if you don't have the nerve. If we weren't us the fight would have been your fault." CRACK! The man went white as the gun in Luffy's hand cracked and broke into two pieces, each landing in the snow before Luffy let go of the crushed third piece. The man stared at all of the pirates on the ship, each one of them ready for some action, in loose, easy stances. The front of the trembling man's trousers began to steam as the snow yellowed.

Grimacing slightly at that, Luffy turned to the only one who seemed to be even remotely calm. The man was thick and heavyset, with a large torso. He had black, slicked-back hair and a goatee. He wore a long, white fur-lined green tunic with thick armor plates on his arms. Luffy eyed his low, steady fighting stance and cracked a small smirk, "We aren't here to fight. We aren't here to cause trouble or hurt anyone. We just want a doctor." He bowed his head slightly, "Please… let us get our friends the help they need."

The man swallowed, before nodding, "Very well." He replied quietly, "Come with me. I'll take you to the village."

Luffy returned his stoicism with a warm smile, "Thank you." He turned, "Come on guys! Let's go!"

"But I should warn you." Luffy turned back to the man with a question-mark over his head. The man sighed and closed his eyes, "This country only has one doctor… and most say she's a witch."

…

Before leaving they had hidden their ship a bit further inland. Nami had insisted, worried about all the gold they had hidden in her holds. The townspeople had directed them a few minutes upstream where high cliffs functioned as a little hidey-hole. Nami had make sure they acted as casually as they could long before they entered the island, so the people here wouldn't think anything was suspicious. She hoped it would be enough, and everyone around would have to pray for mercy if it wasn't because she certainly wouldn't give them any.

They had been walking for a couple minutes now, deep into the island's territory. For those who had rarely seen snow, Robin's earlier comment were ringing a bell. Perhaps it was because they were too worried about their crewmates, but the novelty had already worn off. All of them except for Luffy were freezing, though Vivi was hopeful that the cold would help her fever cool down, even if only slightly. Robin had yet to wake up, which they were supremely glad for because they'dhad to put clothes on her earlier. The poor woman was going to be in agony by the time this round of nightmares was over. She was currently strapped into a makeshift stretcher. Vivi was riding on Luffy's back.

"I don't understand…" Nami was talking with the man leading them – Dalton was his name – about the island, "I was told this place was called Drum by two of my crewmates. How can you say it has no name?"

Dalton stiffened, "Yes, we once were the Kingdom of Drum." He confirmed to the mikan-haired navigator, "But no longer." He growled, casting his gaze to the side and glaring at the tallest of the peaks, "This once was a land that prided its medicine… When I first became a Captain of the guard… Life has always been harsh here, but it was a good life. The King was a kind, just man who cared for his people." His gloves made clear sounds that stood out even amongst the crunching snow as he clenched his fists, "His sons… not so much. One was banished, and the other took his father's place. It didn't take long at all for him to be revealed as a tyrannical, overgrown child whose eyes were bigger than his stomach. He demanded all twenty of the best doctors in the country to go stay permanently at his side, and either killed or exiled every last one of the ones left over. All so he would have a stranglehold on the country and make everyone depend on him and his whims for medical aid."

With every word Dalton spoke, even as sick as she was, Vivi's face darkened in an angry flush. She didn't really have the energy to say much of anything, but managed a weak, "B-bastard!" How could any man call himself a King with a straight face after committing such an atrocity?

"Indeed." Dalton let out a sigh, "But only a few months ago, our greatest disaster brought some of the greatest fortune we've ever had." His voice turned a bit sheepish, "It was the reason for our hostile greeting back there. Just five pirates attacked this nation and nearly destroyed it. They were insanely powerful. We never stood a chance."

"Hmph, they killed the tyrant then? Good riddance to bad rubbish." Nami wasn't normally one who would say something like that about anyone, but this entire situation positively reeked of Arlong.

"No." Dalton froze them in their tracks, before they hurried to keep following, "The coward never even fought. He simply ran with his tail between his legs to the sea. He left us to our doom to save his own skin."

"WHAT?!" Predictably, the one who was maddest was Vivi. She didn't quite erupt; she didn't have anywhere near the amount of energy needed for that. But that had been the loudest they heard her since Little Garden.

"Shhh…" Luffy reached a hand up and gently started patting her head, "I know you're angry Vivi, but you need to save your energy."

Vivi looked mutinous, before a wave of vertigo seemed to strike and she slumped, "Bastard." She whispered, "W-what an utter ba-bastard…" The exertion had made her dizzy, "He d-doesn't deserve…" She fell silent, her head spinning too much to continue.

Nami patted her back, "I know Vivi, I know. He's gone now. He won't hurt these people again." She said, though she had a niggling suspicion that they would be ensuring that personally before they left this island.

Valerie's face was closing off as she listened to the story, and by now she wasn't the only Straw Hat connecting the dots, "This… King's name…" She said in a seemingly lackadaisical tone, "Wouldn't happen to be Wapol, would it?" The way Dalton's shoulders stiffened in rage and he turned with an apoplectic look in his eyes gave her their answer before a word could escape his mouth, and her normal smile turned into a sneer. "Were his eyes still bigger than his stomach after he ate his Devil Fruit?"

All around them, people paled to ash, "Y-you've met him?!" One of them started to tremble.

"He was searching for this island." Luffy confirmed.

"Met him?" Nami scoffed, "That asshole tried to eat our ship. I crushed him, and Valerie sent him flying."

All of them gaped at her, before Dalton's anger turned into a smile, "Then you have our most gracious thanks." He bowed to her, before turning to the men, "Put everyone on alert immediately and double the guard! Even if our new friends gave us an unknowing hand, we may not have seen the last of him!"

"Will you be alright, Dalton? They are pirates." Most of them didn't look comfortable with leaving their clear leader alone, even after what they had heard and seen.

"It's alright. I can feel in my bones that they don't mean us any harm."

The man saluted, before turning with half of their retinue and making their way back. "Hey!" Zoro barked, speaking for the first time and causing them to stop short, "The asshole's ship was weird. It could stay underwater and pop up whenever he wanted. That was how he caught us by surprise. Don't assume there's nothing there just because you don't see anything."

The Drum natives started murmuring, before the leader snapped another salute and thanked the swordsman. It didn't take too much longer for them to reach the town of Bighorn, which was closer to the giant mountains. On the way they passed some pretty strange fauna, including an upright, incredibly fuzzy bear with a walking stick. They had to bow to it as they were passing and were bemused to get a nod back.

Once they made it into town, Usopp mistook one of the residents for another Hiking Bear. A few of the locals and crew chuckled at that. Later, Vivi even managed a weak smile as they saw how respected the humble Dalton was. Apparently, an election was coming up, since the people of Drum had decided to dissolve the Drum Kingdom. Dalton was the clear favorite, though evidently, he didn't feel he was worthy.

He led them to a house – his own – and hurried them inside. A fire was roaring in the hearth and apparently they had been cooking earlier, "I'm sorry I don't have much. We weren't exactly expecting guests." Dalton smiled a little sardonically.

"It's alright." Nami told him as she readied the thermometer. Usopp had stayed outside to make another snow sculpture, trying to keep his mind and hands busy. Luffy would have been tempted to do the same, but ultimately, he was too worried for Vivi and Robin to play around right now. Both of the young ladies were having to make due on the one bed.

"107.6? That's an absurd fever!" Dalton gasped in shock as they read the thermometer, "How in the world is this young lady even still alive, much less conscious?"

"She's tough." Nami said, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a gentle caress. Vivi's eyes were lidded in exhaustion. She looked awful. The bags under her eyes had only grown darker. Poor thing was probably going to sleep for a day once she was finally back to normal and able to conk out.

Still, she gave a weak smile to her friends, "S-sorry for being a bother, guys."

"No." Luffy gripped her hand lightly, "No one on this ship would ever think that of you, Vivi."

Dalton sucked in a breath, "I was right. I knew I recognized her." Vivi's jaw lowered slightly as she processed his words, "We've met before, young Princess. At Reverī." He let out a low chuckle, "Suddenly I am not surprised at all. I cannot imagine a simple fever could ever beat a phenomenal lady like you, not after I saw you swallow your pain to stop a war."

"No, it really couldn't." All the Straw Hats grinned as Vivi's fever-flush deepened into a blush, not surprised by that little admission, even if most were intrigued by the story behind it.

"And what of her?" Dalton questioned, curiously eyeing the other woman but not recognizing her.

Not that anyone could blame him really. It had been more than a decade since Nico Robin's bounty poser had been taken. Something that Robin was quite happy for.

"We don't know." Luffy exhaled sharply, "We thought she had the same thing as Vivi, but she's different. Her fever only lasted a couple hours."

"She also became hypersensitive while awake, before falling into such a senseless state we thought she was a vegetable, before falling into nightmares." Nami added.

Dalton shook his head, "I've never heard of such an illness."

"Neither have we." Sanji said, chewing on his unlit cigarette, "We need that doctor, Dalton. Where are they?"

Dalton stared evenly at them, before sighing and pointing out the window. "Up there." He told them softly.

Tic marks appeared on most of their heads, making him balk at their sudden anger and turning to look himself. A sweatdrop grew on his head as he beheld the snow dragon staring into his home. Nami got up and marched out the door. A crash sounded, before the snow sculpture got pulverized and she bodily threw Usopp in, multiple goose-eggs growing on his head.

Dalton couldn't help the bemused chuckle he let out as they then got a view of the tallest of the Drum Rockies. "See the castle?" He said lowly, "That was where Wapol lived before he fled the country, and where his father lived before him. Once Wapol fled, Dr. Kureha took up residence."

"Then we need her to come down. Call her, please! It's an emergency." Sanji pleaded, his very soul wrenching as he stared at the suffering ladies.

"It's not that simple." He bowed his head, "I'm afraid we have no way to contact her."

"What the hell kind of doctor is she then?!" Nami exploded as she threw her arms up into the air, followed closely by Sanji. The rest of the crew were stone-faced with anger.

"She is one of the best doctors in the world. Her skills would have earned her the top spot in Wapol's Isshi-20, had she agreed to work for him. Instead, she evaded all attempts at capture for years. There's a reason people call her a Witch. She's beyond eccentric… not to mention she's a hundred-and-thirty-nine years old."

Jaws dropped, as more than one voice shouted, "How the hell is she even alive?"

Zoro remained stoic and asked, "What the hell do people do when they're sick around here, then?"

He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, "That's part of why people call her a witch. She comes down from the mountains whenever she feels like it. She'll look for patients almost randomly, treat them… and then take whatever she wants from them as compensation."

"Sounds like a nasty old lady." Usopp spoke, before sipping on his hot chocolate.

"…Is she a doctor or a mountain bandit?" Luffy scratched his head, thinking back to his old home.

"How does an old lady like her even get down the mountain?" Nami asked him, though she didn't stop glaring at the castle.

"I'm not sure, but I've heard stories. Way I hear it is… Well, on moonlit nights she'll fly down the mountain on a sleigh. People claim to have seen it, and always say she had a strange beast with her." Usopp predictably started sweating, though thankfully for his lumps he didn't start freaking out. "She's our only doctor… but truthfully we don't like to deal with her if we can avoid it."

A weak chuckle erupted from beside Vivi, "Well, well, isn't that a shame?" The newly awoken Robin had a look of agony on her face, feeling every stitch of her clothing like they were pins jabbing into her, "Looks like we're done for then." Her morbid chuckling increased as the rest of them deadpanned.

"Still hurts?" Luffy knelt down next to her in concern and asked her. He could see just how much pain she was in, "Are you going-"

"Pain is an old friend." She huffed out as she tried to move. She had a bit more success this time than any of the previous times she had awoken. She managed to sit up slightly, before she flopped back down with a grimace, "One I didn't care to meet again. C'est la vie."

Luffy stood at glared at the tallest of the Drum Rockies, "I'm not letting them suffer for even a day longer. If we can't get her to come to them, then we have to bring them to her." He continued to glare daggers at the mountain and the rest of the crew were surprised when it didn't spontaneously combust, "Guys, find me some rope. I'll get them up there!"

Dalton was utterly shocked when not only did no one let out a word of protest, but Sanji stepped forward and claimed he would help. Nami and even Valerie also stepped up and volunteered.

Luffy immediately shot them down with a shake of his head, "If I'm guessing the size of that mountain right, I'm the only one who will be able to get up there with passengers. Even Sanji is still too new to Geppō to carry one of them. He could probably make it on his own, but he'd be dead on his feet by the time he made it."

"Are you crazy?!" They finally roared at him. Sanji stepped forward with a growl, "I've been training for months, Luffy! Last time we sparred I lasted two hours!"

Luffy stared at him for a moment, before turning to Dalton, "How tall is that mountain?"

"Ten kilometers." Dalton still sounded dazed over the idea. And judging from how Nami and Sanji both ground their teeth together, neither of them had liked the answer.

"That's even worse. I thought it was about eight." Luffy admitted with a grimace.

"Damn it!" Nami slammed her hand on the ground, and immediately regretted it when it started to ache. Sanji bit through his smoke and watched the tobacco spill on Dalton's floor.

"I'll keep them safe." Luffy put a hand on each of their shoulders, "I promise they'll be as good as new next time you see them."

"Fufufufu, looks like we're in your hands, Captain-san."

"Maybe I can't follow you all the way up, but if you think for a second I'm not following you up until the base of that damn mountain you have another thing coming." Nami let out a snarl, and he had to wrap her up in his arms.

"I'll do the same. Dalton told us about some of the animals around here, and those Lapahns sound nasty." Sanji put another cigarette between his lips, "You may be the strongest one here, but if you're going to be carrying both of them you won't be able to use your arms."

"That's fine, Shishishi!" Luffy was perfectly okay with that.

"No, it isn't. I'll go with Luffy." Nami denied, "Sanji, I need you to go protect the ship for me. I'm worried about that fat bastard trying to s-eat our ship again if he shows up. I need you to defend Merry with your life. Can you do that for me?" She gave him a pouty puppy-dog face, and they lost the cook.

"Of course, Nami-swaaan!" Sanji immediately began twirling as he took in Nami's words.

"Oh!" Robin suddenly had a sheepish look on her face, "Oh my, how embarrassing." She even had a light flush on her cheeks, and did look legitimately mortified, "With everything that happened once we left, I completely forgot to tell you." She grimaced as she turned to Nami, "We had… friends on Little Garden." She inclined her head weakly to Vivi and Valerie, "They had actually rigged Merry up to blow, before I defused all the bombs. They're probably following us."

Nami's face skipped shark and went straight-up demonic, "Sanji. Ship. NOW!" Sanji moved so quickly they never even saw the door open or close as he left, "AND SO HELP ME IF A SINGLE BELI IS MISSING!" She snarled at his dissipating afterimage, before turning to look at the rest of the heavily-sweating crew and Dalton. She turned to Robin, "Were any bombs in the living quarters?"

"No." Robin replied, drawing a sigh of relief from the mikan-haired woman, "All the bombs were actually pretty well hidden in the aft and fore storage rooms, as well as on the mast and even the bathroom under the toilet. I don't know if they tried to enter the rooms… but I suppose they were locked."

Nami finally relaxed as she remembered that detail. She had spared no expense for once in getting high-quality South Blue locks for the living quarters as well as multiple safes. The Going Merry wasn't a huge ship by any metric nor were they a large crew, so they needed some added security for the amount of money they had whenever they weren't on-board themselves.

They weren't infallible by any means. Nothing was. Nami herself had picked them after about thirty minutes of effort and spent about two hours cracking the safe model she had chosen. But that was the point. Nami had taken that long to get through them, and she was the best at what she did. That was a hell of an endorsement for the brand, coming from her. So really, they only way they could have gotten in without also being thieves as skilled as her would have been if they had forced their way in, and that clearly didn't happen.

"They didn't take anything on Little Garden, I know that much." If even a single Beli coin on that ship had been moved she would have known. "Let's hurry and get to the mountain, Luffy."

But Dalton suddenly let out a curse, "Damn." He said lowly as he eyed the nimbus of clouds starting to wrap around the Drum Rockies, "That looks like it's going to be a nasty blizzard." Snow was starting to fall harder and harder, and the visibility was dropping. Soon, they started to lose sight of the castle on the tallest peak.

"Of course." Nami grit her teeth, "Mother Nature couldn't make it easy for us, could she? We need to move."

"Right!" Luffy got up and clapped his face with his hands, "Let's…" He trailed off, a look of surprise on his face, before he gazed at his crew with a strange look on his face, "I just realized… we never assigned a first mate."

"Is that really important right now?" Valerie asked in exasperation.

"Of course. The first mate is the second in command and the leader if the Captain is missing." Usopp crossed his arms, "Which is why it should clearly be the Great Captain Us-" BONK

Luffy looked at Nami and Zoro, "You two have been with me the longest, though Zoro was technically the first to join."

They both stared at him evenly, before glancing at one another. The stare down went on for about a minute, an unheard conversation seemingly happening between the two. Finally, Nami turned to Luffy and replied, "We can decide that between ourselves once we're all together again. Vivi and Robin are more important right now." She glanced at the rest of the crew, "Suffice to say that if either of us speak, you better listen."

"Aye, aye." Came the responses from the rest.

"Alright, we'll decide later. Now… how are we going to do this?" Luffy eyed the two ladies with his lips pursed.

Five minutes later, Usopp had the most deadpanned look imaginable on his face, "It's a good thing Luffy is so tall, otherwise this would have never worked." Zoro had immediately suggested a double fireman carry, but Nami had shot him down as quickly as she ever had. If they did that, then Luffy's shoulders would be ramming into their midsections with every leap upwards. It would be way too dangerous and punishing for the two sick women. Instead, she had bodily tied Vivi to his front – her legs and arms wrapped around him and a blush that had nothing to do with her fever adorning her face – with the plan being to do the same with Robin, only on his back.

Of course, the older woman, despite the pain she was in, just had to get a saucy comment before they started, "Fufufufu, Be gentle, it's our first times." Vivi's face had predictably turned an even brighter shade of red, which, of course, made the poor girl lightheaded in a hurry.

Another five minutes later, they had Robin strapped in and were ready to go. "Be careful." Dalton rumbled, "There are many hazards on this side of the mountain, the least of which being the Lapahns. If you're serious about this I won't stop you, but please go around the mountain first. Perhaps that enough time will pass that the storm will be gone."

"No." Luffy said, "Nami can handle any dumb rabbits ahead of us. We need to go straight on. Zoro, you're in charge!"

"Very well." Dalton let out a deep sigh as the two of them took off, moving at a much faster rate than Dalton had believed possible.

"Don't worry about them." Zoro declared, "Luffy will have them up there before you know it." He sat on the snow and put Wadō across his lap, "They're strong. They'll make it."

Dalton eyed him for a moment, before smiling and taking a seat himself. "That's a lot of confidence you have in your crewmates. You must have been through a lot."

"You have no idea." Usopp grumbled as he leaned on a tree.

"Kyahahaha, your crew formed on the East Blue right?" Valerie began to giggle, "I still don't know much about you guys. I know you're all strong… way stronger than me… What did you guys do to get your bounties?"

Zoro chuckled, "Oh, nothing much." His grin was all teeth, "Just took down every big name in East Blue without a scratch, and then raided a Marine Base that had been accepting bribes from the fish face who had tormented Nami for years."

Valerie gaped, "A Base?" She shook her head, "Wait, They were taking bribes? Are you talking about that Arlong guy Nami mentioned to us?"

"That's right." Usopp told her, "Zoro beat one of his top enforcers while his guts were practically falling out." The dark-skinned boy shot the swordsman a look.

Valerie blinked in shock, "Come again?" She asked, a little green.

"Let's just say Luffy won't be the first one on this crew to fight a Shichibukai." Zoro finally said, after a moment's pause, an odd feeling of pride going through him as he realized that. He ignored the gaping from both his crewmember and the village's pseudo-leader. His hand clenched on Wadō's hilt until the squeezing was audible.

Finally, he closed his eyes after bringing out Sandai Kitetsu and beginning to meditate with it. He had slowly been acclimatizing to the blade and bonding to it. It was a slow-going process, because frankly the two of them weren't really good matches. It was a bond formed through guts and mutual respect. But Kitetsu was a cursed blade, and it always wanted blood. Several times through the fight on Whiskey Peak, Zoro had needed to reign in the blade as it seemed to physically try to aim itself further than he intended. It wanted to maim… to rend… to kill.It practically demanded blood, the more blood the better.

And that was not at all what Zoro was about. As a swordsman he accepted the risk and the reality of his profession, but he was no murderer. He wasn't about to let this problem child warp him into someone he was not.

Only his meditation was interrupted by a loud cry, "Dalton!" The same villager Usopp had mistaken for a Hiking Bear walked up to them, "Dalton, I heard you were looking for the doctor! Dr. Kureha was just spotted in Cocoa Weed."

Dead silence. Luffy, Nami, and the two sick girls had already been gone for about twenty minutes. Usopp's jaw was hanging somewhere around his navel as the information penetrated their skulls. Zoro summed it up pretty well, "FUCK!"

-]|[-

Luffy and Nami had been jogging for about half an hour at this point. Nami had continuously kept glancing back at Luffy and wincing every time she looked at his clothes. Or lack thereof. Specifically of the winter variety. Robin herself – in between her moans of pain at every jerk – had allowed herself a chuckle, "Just staring at your feet is painful, Captain-san."

Vivi let out a weak giggle, "You're going to get f-frostbite.~" She tried to sing-song, the effort failing horribly due to how scratchy her voice was.

"Ehh? What's that?" Luffy asked cluelessly, having never experienced freezing cold in his life. Or at least not that he could remember. Dawn Island itself seemed to always be in perpetual spring at the worst, with temperatures rarely falling below sixty, and had never seen snow. So, by the time Luffy first ran into cold, he had already eaten his Devil Fruit.

"Why am I not surprised in the slightest?" Nami wanted to facepalm, but as she was defending her crewmates, she refused to lose focus.

"That's when your skin and muscles freeze." Robin said clinically, before smiling as creepily as she could in between her pained-twitches, "If it's bad enough, your limbs may even fall off. Fufufufu, are you looking to wear a peg leg, Captain-san?"

"Robin…" Nami groaned, before snapping her attention to something standing to their left. As they stared at it, they assumed that it was one of the man-eating bunnies they had been told about. They had been told these things were massive, "Huh, it's pretty cute."

It had spotted them and – displaying that at least one thing they'd been told was correct – bared its clearly carnivorous teeth at them. "Pretty cute indeed." Robin smiled as Nami went from cute to 'ehhh.' It then ran straight at them way faster than they had thought it'd be able to and dived at Nami's legs, aiming to take a bite.

Nami casually leapt over it, "I take it back. It's no longer cute." She deadpanned as it buried itself in the snow before digging out and growling angrily.

"I think it would make a nice pet." Robin clearly still thought it adorable, despite it attacking them. Then she said something that horrified them all. "It would be nice to have a pet that could also help us get rid of any enemies we might have to deal with in the future."

Luffy shot it a glare as he stopped short, its short little arm futilely scratching the air where they should have been as it sailed by, before they resumed their journey with chuckles, "I'm kinda hungry. Anyone want lunch?"

"Let's just go." Vivi groaned in his arms, burying her head into his neck, a happy little smile on her face before it disappeared against Luffy's chest. Nami quirked an eyebrow at the action, before sniggering lightly and dodging the very persistent bunny once more. It rammed into a tree… and bit right through it the same way she'd seen Arlong do once.

Her expression fell quicker than the snow came down, "Alright you little shit, it was cute the first time, but now I'm getting tired of this." She drew her Clima-Tact and twirled it as she stared at the bunny, "Now shoo, or I'm going to get… unhappy."

"GROWR!" The tiny thing didn't heed her warning and went right for her.

CRACK!

And then it was down, stars in its eyes as it nursed the nice lump on its head. "Hmph. Should have listened, pipsqueak."

"You good, Nami?" Luffy asked her curiously as they continued onwards, "You looked pretty angry for a moment there."

"I lost my temper." She let out an explosive sigh, "Damn thing reminded me of Arlong when it bit through the tree. I feel kinda bad now." She admitted, "It didn't deserve that."

"Oh." He gave her hand a squeeze as they burst out of the trees and into a clearing full of snow. From there, they could see they were nearly to the base now and began to pick up the pace. Ten minutes later, they arrived at the foot of the mountain.

Nami let out another explosive sigh, "Damn, this thing looks even more intimidating up close than it did from Dalton's house." She looked down, before slapping a hand onto the rock face, "You're right, not even Sanji could make it up with a passenger. I had hoped…" She shook herself, before reaching over, squeezing Vivi a bit as she hugged both her and Luffy, leaning up to kiss Luffy on the mouth, "You keep them safe, damn it. I want to see all three of you back safe and sound." She then shocked both Vivi and Robin by pecking each in turn on the forehead. Neither of them quite knew how to react to that.

"They'll be good as new before you know it." Luffy promised as she backed away. "See you soon, Nami!" And with that, they were off, speeding into the air with the greatest of ease.

Nami kept watch for a moment more and started to lambast herself, "Contender for First Mate my shapely ass! I can't even help my crewmates when they need it most! I need to up my training!" She then started growling as she came to a realization, "God damn it, I sound like Zoro!"

-]|[-

As Luffy was taking off up the tallest of the Drum Rockies, several other things were occurring. First, Dr. Kureha had – as Dalton had been informed – chosen this specific moment to come down for a supply run, having run out of a few basic necessities. Accompanied by her blue-nosed reindeer, she had arrived in Cocoa Weed, drawn by the pained cries of a child.

And proving herself utterly shameless, Kureha had broken down the door with a punch, roared at a man who claimed she was a year older than her age of 139 after mistaking their cries for demands over the secret of her youth. She had then casually cured the child of a disease which would have killed him with all the bedside manner of a luchador and walked away with both her necessities and just under half the store's money as 'payment.'

Kureha left the relieved/annoyed family with a final wave of her hand and a 'kakakakak' before continuing on her sleigh. Really, if she hadn't been the wrong gender and altogether too skinny, a 'hohoho!' probably wouldn't have been out of place.

Down in Bighorn, Dalton had almost readied a sleigh to have them brought to Cocoa Weed, before Zoro had stopped him with a shake of his head, "Don't. You said she doesn't stay down here for long, right? With our luck, if we go after her she'll be long gone by the time we make it there."

Dalton ground his teeth as he loosened the harness from the moose's neck, "You're right." He growled out furiously, "You're right, damn it. This is my fault. I never thought she'd be down again so soon since she had just come down yesterday."

Usopp groaned as he realized something else, "And seeing as our luck is apparently going to be like this today…" They all turned to stare at one of their youngest members, "Be prepared for action everyone."

Valerie was the first to get it, "Wapol and Baroque Works." She said flatly, before starting to giggle, her fake smile turning both real and wry for a moment. "Yes, that would be just our luck, wouldn't it?"

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

"Dalton!" A villager crashed into the snow near them and dug a trench in the white stuff with his face. They quickly had him up and coughing.

"Calm yourself, lad. Tell me what happened!" Dalton commanded, looking at the terrified man before them.

"WAPOL!" The man managed to scream out, "We saw bubbles because we were watching for them, so we were prepared for the fight! But they were just too strong! We need reinforcements!"

The man hadn't even finished speaking before he was running from the village as fast as his legs would carry him, before he transformed into a goddamn bison and charged at an even higher speed. Zoro got up, a grin on his face as his eyes became hooded, "Let's go. I'm itching for a good fight."

"Kyahahaha! Well, I'll always be eager to bash that fat bastard's face in!" She jumped on Usopp's back – light as a feather – and jammed her heels into his sides as she pointed in the distance, "Let's go!"

"What am I, a horse?!" Usopp turned and screamed at her indignantly, before she did it again, "I'm going to get you, Valentine! Don't you dare increase your weight!" He growled as he took off running and caught up to Zoro. Dalton was long gone and even his footsteps in the snow were already starting to get filled. Before long, the extremely heavy snowfall had them disappearing entirely.

They ran for a few minutes, before Valerie turned to Zoro and let out a strangled cry. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!"

Usopp nearly unbalanced and crashed to the ground, "What the hell are you screaming in my ear for?!" he roared back at the blonde. "I swear, I'm going to-" A hand clamped onto his head and turned it to the right, "KILL ZORO WHEN I SEE HIM AGAIN!" His eyes popped out of his head as he stared at the conveniently empty space where their would-be First Mate should have been running.

…

"Where the hell are those idiots?!" Zoro growled as he stood stock still, scratching his head, "How do they even get so lost?"

Nearby, Mr. 3 was eyeing the swordsman with irritation in his gaze, "They got lost? Hmph, the man is delusional. Still, this is quite fortuitous for us. He's alone now, so we can capture him first and deal with the others." He and Miss Goldenweek were nearby where Zoro was now wandering aimlessly, hidden among the rising snowbanks with his wax. They had abandoned their initial hiding place when Zoro practically walked into them, but the swordsman hadn't noticed.

"Now, what should I do for this trap?" A smirk rose on his face as he placed his hand on the ground, white liquid beginning to seep from his pores and race away, utterly hidden by the snow. They watched as Zoro made his way towards another of his masterpieces… a hardened wax bear trap that might even just chop the man in half. Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek watched in anticipation and dispassionate boredom respectively as Zoro drew closer and closer to the trap… before when he was a mere foot away he suddenly and inexplicably veered off to the right.

As Mr. 3 was grinding his teeth, Zoro was scratching his head in confusion, "Have I seen this snow pile before? It looks familiar." He hadn't. "Stupid moving landscape. Why can't everything just stay still?"

He took a step forward… and then turned a hundred-and-eighty degrees and started walking the other way, narrowly avoiding a sharpened wax chain that sprung out of the snow and pierced the air his head had been occupying a moment before. "Eh?" He turned around and eyed the snow with narrowed eyes, "Must have been the wind."

He turned left, completely avoiding the wax arrow launcher trap's trigger that Mr. 3 had hurriedly formed.

As a vein started twitching on Mr. 3's head, Miss Goldenweek surprised herself with the need to suppress a giggle.

-]|[-

"Ma, ma, what the hell did these silly hippos think they were doing?" Wapol stared at the bleeding and broken bodies of the men laid out before him with a confused expression, "That certainly wasn't a kingly welcome." He muttered darkly.

"MY KING!" Several men with shields jumped into the fray, blocking arrows and some gunshots from hitting the tyrant on top of the White Walky.

"Leave this land Wapol, or your head will decorate the castle gates!" Several men came into view and one in particular yelled out while pointing a gun at the man.

"IS THAT ANY WAY TO TALK TO YOUR KING?!" Wapol ground his teeth looking at the cretins charging at his men.

"YOU'RE NO KING OF OURS!" More gunshots rang through the air as several of Wapol's men went down, blood flying through the air and staining the snow. Several men on both sides were down by this point, with the villagers hiding themselves well even while moving as they took well-placed shots. In contrast, the servants of the king didn't bother taking cover, but their return fire was devastating. The villagers couldn't shoot nearly as well as their enemies, unfortunately. Even training under Dalton wasn't enough to overcome the several years of training many of the guards had.

And once Wapol's two commanders joined in, it turned into a slaughter. "Maaahahahaha! You silly hippos thought you were a match for my army?" His countenance turned dark, "KILL THEM ALL, MEN! KILL THEM ALL AND MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF THEM. I'LL HAVE NO REBELLION IN MY KINGDOM!"

"NOT ON MY WATCH!" Kuromarimo gasped in shock as a wide, strangely-shaped blade – it looked rather like an overly large oar – sliced straight through his fuzzy gloves and nearly took his arm off. Spit and blood then mingled in a spray from his mouth as a massive hoof punted him in the chest, breaking ribs.

As he flew back and nearly knocked Wapol off of Robson – the king's personal wooly hippo – Wapol turned a glare in the direction of the attack. "Kuromarimo!" Wapol gaped, "Who the hell-!" He broke off, before letting out an infuriated growl at seeing Dalton standing there, ready with his blade before them. "Dalton, you bastard! How dare you attack your Kuromarimo! Do you not remember he was senior to you in my army? That's grounds for immediate execution!"

"Kuromarimo, you, and all your men are no longer welcome here!" Dalton took a menacing step forward, "Leave this land and never come back, or I'll have your head!"

Chess roared back at the ship, which had the massive hippo figurehead extended outwards with the mouth open, creating a covered pathway up to the top of the cliff. "Isshi-20! We need your aid!" Over a dozen doctors rushed out of the ship, each of them dressed to the nines in full theater wear. Aprons, sterile gloves with the hands up and facing out, masks, hair nets, the works.

"We will begin the operation!" Each said as one.

"Scalpel!" One passed a scalpel to the lead surgeon. He sliced Kuromarimo's chest open.

"Drill." Small holes were drilled in the ribs to fit screws and brackets, which were provided next.

"Needle!" Another passed the needle over surgical wire already ready.

"Duct tape!" …?

Kuromarimo had his chest taped as everyone else looked on in stunned shock. Duct tape, on the chest of a man as furry as him? Yikes.

"I think I'm going to be sick." One of the surviving villagers had a green tinge to his skin.

And yet somehow, Kuromarimo was up and ready to go seconds after his surgery finished, much to the disbelief of most of the rest of them.

"Maaahahahaha! You should have finished him off Dalton. You won't get another chance!" Wapol laughed, "But I'm surprised! I thought you were dead, my Captain of the Guard!"

"He's not your Captain anymore!" An injured villager managed to struggle to his feet. "He isn't your vassal anymore, Bastard King! He was the only one who stayed to fight! To defend this country! He almost died trying to protect us!"

"Then he should have died." Wapol replied flippantly, "That is the purpose of soldiers. To die for their King so that he may live." He waved a hand, "I wonder how you managed to survive."

Dalton's scowl grew, "Outsiders thought of Drum as a great land, full of the best doctors around! And in your father's day, that was true! But you took them all for yourself and kept them researching inside the castle! All the people had to beg and plead for your help any time they got sick!"

"That's politics, Maaahahahaha!" Wapol sneered at the man, "A country lives for its King. If the king decides they should grovel at his feet, then they must grovel."

"WRONG! YOU'RE A CHILD, WHO KNOWS NOTHING OF TRUE NOBILITY!" Dalton roared, stomping his foot forward menacingly in his rage, "Instead of caring for your people, you held the sick of this country hostage! You're not a King! You're nothing more than a criminal,!" He took another step forward, "I was indebted to your father." His appearance started to morph. He became furry and grew horns, "I had hoped that you would one day understand the true purpose of being a king, BUT IT IS CLEAR YOU NEVER SHALL!"

"Kill that beast, men!" Wapol pointed a finger and yelled out. Dozens of shots rang out, but Dalton was absurdly speedy for someone of his size. No bullet even came close enough to tear some clothing as the man dodged. And then with a roar, he took out dozens of soldiers with his blade and fists.

"Tch!" Kuromarimo spat to the side, "No sympathy for your former men, huh? They can't touch him at all."

"A King who runs at the first sign of danger and abandons his people…" Dalton raised his downturned head, "IS NO KING AT ALL!"

Chess raised his crossbows with a glower, "Traitor. They may have once called us equals, but that is no longer the case. After all, former allies will know all about your weakness, Captain!" He turned his crossbows and pointed them at two separate villagers who had injured themselves in the earlier fight, each far from one another. There was no way either of them would be able to move.

Dalton's eyes widened, "You basta-"

"YOU CAN'T PROTECT THEM ALL, CAPTAIN!" Chess crowed gleefully as he fired his massive arrows at the citizens.

Dalton managed to speed in front of one and cut the arrow in half, but there was no way he would reach the other in time. And even if he did, that would leave his current man undefended. Easy pickings for another arrow. "CHESS!" He roared in utter fury as his attention was drawn to the terrified man he'd sworn to protect.

"Rankyaku!" A large blade of wind split the arrow in half and plowed into the ground, throwing up a plume of snow. When everything settled, much to the chagrin of Wapol's party, Sanji stood before the cowering man, taking a drag from his smoke, "Hmph, never been able to prepare hippo before." The men in front of him stiffened, "To prepare, the hippo meat must be cut into small cubes. A ton of salt and pepper to taste. For one this large, five hundred potatoes, 1000 gallons of brown gravy, two hundred carrots, and four hundred sprigs of parsley."

He exhaled another puff of smoke, "That stew will feed nearly three thousand." He smirked as all the men backstepped, not knowing if he was talking about the suddenly sweaty hippo or the man wearing one's skin as a cape, "Or perhaps my Captain for three meals We'll have to see…"

-]|[-

Luffy grunted as he was forced to make yet another course correction for their climb. Things were going much rougher than he had expected. The distance he was climbing wasn't a problem, nor was the added weight of his two friends strapped to him. Had those been the only factors, he could have made the climb in his sleep.

No, the problem was the wind being thrown at them because of the blizzard. The wind had been battering them in more ways than one. Robin's face would have ached from the cold even if she hadn't still felt hypersensitive. And because he needed to be smoother with his Geppō to avoid jostling his crewmates overly much, rather than being quicker, even he was being thrown slightly by the wind. When the hard gusts hit him in the back, it forced them forward. If they rebounded off the cliff walls into his front, they got thrown backwards. Downdrafts slowed them even more.

All in all, everything about the climb so far seemed determined to blow them off course or slow them down. They were just now passing the quarter-mark for the mountain by his best guess, when they should have been past the halfway-mark at least.

"Are y-you a-alright, L-Luffy?" Vivi managed to stammer.

How he managed to hear her with the howling wind was a minor miracle likely borne from her close proximity. Her fever was just as intense, but the frigid air was actually helping slow the pace of her illness down. Behind him, Robin's teeth were chattering from the cold, and Luffy was stuck with a bit of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' conundrum. If he used his powers a tiny bit to allow his body heat to rise, Robin would be more comfortable. But in return, Vivi would be in even more danger from her fever. And if he didn't… Vivi's fever would be somewhat checked, but Robin would suffer with the icy wind along with the pain her hypersensitivity was causing.

"I'll be fine." He growled out, "This is nothing compared to what you two are going through!"

"Hrnnggg!" Robin groaned as a particularly nasty gust of wind forced her backwards and strained at the rope tying her to Luffy's back. She let out a bit of a wheeze even as the rope started to audibly strain. Vivi's rope was fine because she was latched onto Luffy practically like a limpet, her arms and legs around Luffy and Robin. She even had one of his arms around her for added security.

As Robin was on his back, she had no such benefit. Winds crashing on sheer faces such as these cliff walls were dangerous. The winds near large structures like this were much stronger than the same wind would have been on the ground. As Robin felt so weak she could not possibly grasp tightly onto Luffy, she had been at the mercy of the winds and was terrified that she'd straight up be unseated at some point.

And as they ascended her worst fear came to pass. A particularly strong wind forced her to lean back and the battered, not-at-all-high-quality rope connecting Robin to her captain simply frayed and snapped. An owlish look overtook her face as she felt herself loosen from Luffy and fall backwards, "Capt-" Was the only thing Luffy heard before she fell backwards off him entirely and the lack of her weight almost made Luffy jerk forward and ram poor Vivi into the mountain.

As Robin fell, silent tears streamed from her eyes. She didn't even have it in her to scream or cry in frustration as her life flashed before her eyes, 'Perhaps this is for the best.' All she could manage was a bitter smile. She could have been in Alabasta right now, advancing Baroque Works plans. That would have been the easy road. One more notch on the Devil Child's belt. One more nation annihilated because of her. '

Perhaps it's for the best that I die here.' As she fell, Robin stared unseeing at the cloudy skies above, 'That my dream dies with me.' She had done awful things the past few years. Things that compromised her morals. Things that made her despise herself.

'Yes.' She closed her eyes as she continued to fall, 'It's for the best. It's no less than I deserve, for what I put Vivi and her people through.' Her people would be ashamed of her. She was sure Saul was ashamed of her.

"I hope you get better, Vivi. And I hope you all make it to Alabasta and manage to beat Crocodile." She whispered, which was lost in the howl anyway as she fell. Another tear slipped out, 'I'm sorry professor… I'm sorry mother…'

And then she flinched as a blindingly bright light flashed through her closed eyelids and a roar cut through the violent winds, "ROBIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNN!"

Her eyes snapped open and she gaped as Luffy sped towards her like a streaking star. He quickly caught up and managed to hook his arm under hers and wrap her close to him, squishing Vivi slightly. "Wha-" She breathed, unable to believe what she was experiencing. Even the pain was a mere ghost, unfelt through her shock. Tears began to dribble once more from her eyes. She was now ugly-crying and stammering. "Why?" She managed to get out, her face scrunching up. There was no logic in this at all. He had erased all the progress they had made. They probably weren't even half a kilometer off the ground anymore. Another couple seconds and she probably would have been dragging her feet in the rising snowbanks as they slowed down! It was simple pragmatism! Who the hell would possibly sacrifice a Princess like Vivi to save a monster like her? "I-I can see the ground again! You lost so much progress! You could have saved Vivi! You could have been faster getting up there without me!" She began to bawl, "WHY DID YOU COME BACK FOR ME?!" Her voice rang through the air.

"What are you, stupid?" Luffy's question was like a slap in the face as he adjusted her and Vivi so that he was holding both securely with one arm each, with both straddling the sword – which they had tied to him to use as leg rests – with one leg each. "You're my friend! WHAT OTHER REASON DO I NEED?!"

Robin could not have been more shocked if she had been trying.

Before she could get a stammered word in edgewise, Luffy turned to glare at the mountain, "YOU AREN'T STOPPING ME, YOU STUPID ROCK! IF I CAN'T GET UP THERE THEN I'LL KNOCK YOU DOWN! SO SHUT UP AND LET ME CLIMB ALREADY!" The soles of his feet – which had not been pumping up and down in Geppō but expelling a steady plume of plasma – burst into a massive blast of his powers.

The bright light got even brighter – almost blinding in fact – and drew Robin's attention once more. Her expression started to match Vivi's completely poleaxed expression as she realized what that meant, "W-wait?! Y-you ate a Devil Fruit?!"

But the time for talking was past them. Vivi and Robin grimaced as they started speeding upwards and gradually gaining more and more speed. The journey was actually much smoother than it had been the first time, but the speed was way higher. The wind was biting at them furiously as they roared into the heavens and into the clouds. They cut into the storm, and the only tell of their presence was the slowly dimming light inside the clouds.

-]|[-

The sound of gnashing teeth was now so audible it was scaring birds away as Mr. 3 watched their prey avoid yet another of his traps. At this point he was one hundred percent certain the green-haired man was just fucking with them and trying to get him to waste energy.

"This isn't amusing anymore." Miss Goldenweek pouted around a bite of her cracker, "Can we just get this over with already?"

Mr. 3 had already been close to snapping before her comments, and the innocent question was the straw that broke the camel's back. "I won't just kill you…" A massive deluge of wax started pouring from his pores, "I think I'll keep you alive just to torment you for wasting my time and creations like this!" The wax surged into a tidal wave, racing forward and crushing flat all the snow in front of it into a layer of ice.

Zoro turned at the noise, and raised an eyebrow as he saw the mass of white racing towards him, "Is snow supposed to do that?" He mumbled to himself, before shrugging his shoulder, "Ittōryū: Sanjūroku Pound Hō!" He yelled as he drew Wadō Ichimonji and swiped it upwards. A large air-blade erupted from the tip of his precious sword and sliced into the oncoming wax. The wave split apart and crashed all around him, splattering a much heavier white all over the place. "Who the hell are you?"

Mr. 3 revealed himself, snarling, "As if you don't know, barbarian." His teeth were in full display as he ground out, "You've been avoiding my traps for the past fifteen minutes!"

"…" Zoro tilted his head to the side, "Traps? Don't know what you're talking about. Anyway, do you know the way to the coast? I can't get used to this stupid landscape."

A violin string snapped inside Mr. 3's mind, "I see. I understand now. You're just a goddamn idiot!"

Zoro felt something splatter on his back and stiffened. "Sadness Blue." Zoro seemed to droop a bit, his head inclining downwards. He looked like he had some weight on his shoulders. Miss Goldenweek came into view from the side, "Can we go already. I'm bored and its cold." Indeed, she was shivering inside her adorable, if she said it herself, parka.

"Hahaha!" Mr. 3 started to cackle. "Good work, Miss Goldenweek." He glared at Zoro, "For someone who gave us so much trouble, you were surprisingly easy to subdue." He started to gloat, "This is why using our brains is so much more effective then brute force like you blithering imbeciles. With her Color Trap painted on you, you won't be able to twitch so much as a finger, even if I come up to you and punt you in your stupid nose!"

Zoro twitched, before he defied the cackling moron in front of him by raising his sword. Miss Goldenweek let out a surprised gasp, which was the only thing that saved Mr. 3. Another wind blade sliced the ground where he had stood moments before. A much bigger flying slash than the one that had sliced through the wax wave. "Sadness, huh?" He growled out as he stared at his treasured blade. His voice sounded filled with grief. Why did it feel so much heavier than normal today? His mind flashed for a moment, a much more slender hand replacing his own in his vision. He could hear Kuina's voice in his ears.

"W-w-what the hell, Miss Goldenweek? Why didn't your Sadness Blue work?" Mr. 3 stammered at his partner, who looked poleaxed herself.

"Why the hell…" Zoro took a step forward, "Do you gotta…" He flashed forward and raised his sword. Mr. 3 panicked and started forming a wax wall in front of himself. "Come here and make this such a shitty day!" The sword hit the half-formed-and-hardened wax and made it bulge outwards. The bulge smashed into Mr. 3's face like the hoof of a bucking bronco and sent him flying backwards with a groan of pain. Zoro growled at the man, "You called me a fool?" His tone was much gruffer than normal, "All you've succeeded in doing is making my blades heavier!"

Mr. 3 groaned as he hit the snow and rolled around, wax starting to pour from his body. "I've had just…" More and more wax started dripping from his form, molding and shaping itself around him, "ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOU!" The wax exploded outwards and wrapped around his body. A massive… suit of armor was revealed when Mr. 3 stood up. It had a massive torso with Mr. 3's face and stupid little flaming hairdo sticking out at the top, with a hilariously tiny waist. Its arms and legs were rather stick-like in their skinniness, though massive boxing gloves and boots adorned the hands and feet. "Candle Champion!" He declared, before charging forwards and trying to lay Zoro out with one blow.

Zoro had put Wadō in his mouth as per usual and drawn Kitetsu and a Yubashiri. He ran forward as well, "Oni…GIRI!" His three swords hit the wax fist dead center, before both of them were thrown back with a clang. Zoro's eyes widened in surprise as his swords failed to even remotely cut into the wax, "What?" He growled out. He hadn't even made a mark?

Mr. 3 had landed on his back, shocked out of his gourd that his Candle Champion had lost in a battle of strength. Just how absurdly strong was this idiot swordsman? He rolled backwards onto his feet and let out a grin as he stared at his Candle Champion's fist. There wasn't a scratch on it. He started to cackle maniacally, "You should have killed me when you had the chance!" He sneered at the green-haired swordsman, "My wax is as hard as steel once its hardened! Now that you've let me equip my armor, you won't lay a single finger on me again! With this armor, I've taken out pirates worth over forty million!"

Zoro grunted, powering through and shaking off the effects of Sadness Blue entirely. He grinned fiercely, "Heh, well isn't that something?" He charged forwards, "Maybe this isn't going to be so annoying after all! Once I've beaten you, I'll be able to cut steel!" He flashed forward and appeared above Mr. 3, swords raised above his head. Mr. 3 panicked and threw up a block, crossing his large gauntlets above his head. Zoro's swords impacted like cannonballs. A shockwave ripped through the area, blowing away the fresh powder that had been falling throughout the fight.

Zoro flipped over him before the man could react and lashed out, slicing into the Candle Champion's backside. Again, he failed to cut through. His swords scraped on the hard wax with a loud screech. Mr. 3 stumbled forwards and nearly fell on his face. He started running, "Damn it, you useless brat! Do something!"

"T-Tranquil Green!" Miss Goldenweek stuttered as she mixed her paints and managed to paint her symbols on Zoro once again. This time, she painted three of the same symbols on his back. It was as many as she could fit on his shirt. She wasn't taking any chances. She wasn't sure how he possibly could have shrugged off her first Color Trap. He didn't seem particularly strong minded if the way he got lost was any indication. She was totally lost.

Only again, she blanched as he did not sit down with her for tea as she intended. Instead, he just stood stock still. Mr. 3 really should have taken the opportunity to at least get a hit in while he was frozen, but the man was utterly rattled.

'Wh-what is this feeling?' Zoro took a deep breath, feeling utterly at peace for the first time in a long time. Even the miasma of death that he constantly had to fight off from Kitetsu wasn't even a slight concern. Everything had died away. The wind, the crunching of the snow under his boots… even his heartbeat sounded simply like thunder in the distance.

Mr. 3 stopped running – finally noticing that his opponent was stock still – and turned around. He grinned, ignoring his partner's frantic attempts to get his attention. To tell him something was wrong. His Champion's glove morphed into a wax arrow launcher.

Zoro's gaze was both seeing and unseeing, 'The snow… the rocks… even the giant mountains in the distance… everything seems to be breathing. Almost like they're… alive…' The Drum Rockies – barely visible from here with the low clouds – had massive, lumbering'breaths.' They were awe-inspiring in their enormity. But Zoro's attention turned to his enemy once more. He could sense both of them. Even with his eyes closed… he could sense them. The relieved elation of the asshole. The anxious foreboding filling the young girl.

And then – with his eyes still closed – he inclined his head to the left. The wax arrow whizzed by his cheek, the softer-wax fletching barely a whisper on the skin of his earlobe. He could feel the shock engulfing the both of them. 'Ah, I understand now. The breath of the world.'

He blurred forward; his eyes still not open. Mr. 3 turned his arrow launcher into the best approximation of a Gatling gun that he could manage. The arrows came fast and heavy, peppering the ground as Zoro unerringly dodged every single shot. He was out of the way before they even finished launching. He knew exactly where each was aimed.

Mr. 3 backpedaled as he shot, his panic increasing with every dodged blow or trick. "Wh-wha- what is happening?! How is he…?"

And then there was no distance between them at all. Zoro swiped his right arm up and swung Yubashiri into the arrow cannon. It immediately stopped firing. Primarily because it simply separated from the main arm and crashed to the snow. Mr. 3's face was a rictus of horror as Zoro's eyes snapped open and he grinned savagely through his biting of Wadō, "Thanks for the steel to cut, friend."

"No wai-!" Mr. 3 yelled as Zoro swung Kitetsu right at the Candle Champion's chest… and had his sword bounce off with a skrang. Zoro choked for a moment, before he choked for real as Mr. 3 finally used the moment to his advantage and buried his giant wax fist into Zoro's gut.

The villain panted as Zoro flew away, looking his he'd run a marathon. "Damn you Miss Goldenweek!" He roared as Zoro finally stopped sliding back by burying Kitetsu into the snow and using it to slow down. He then collapsed to a knee and groaned, spitting out a bit of blood, "WERE YOU TRYING TO HELP ME OR KILL ME?!"

"Damn!" Zoro removed Wadō from his mouth so he could spit out a bit of blood, "I lost the feeling. Damn it!" He pounded a fist into the floor. Asking for another batch didn't even cross his mind. 'I have to find that feeling again.' He got back up and took Wadō up in its proper place once more, 'If I can't do that on my own, then I'm not stronger at all!'

Miss Goldenweek in the meantime had scurried over to Mr. 3 at his behest – uncharacteristically hurrying for the real fear her partner might decide to turn her into one of his masterpieces in his rage – and had painted his entire armor once he produced enough wax to fix it. It was now a dark purple and his hair-wick was burning brightly, "I can't believe you've forced me to reveal this of all things. Now that my Candle Champion is painted, you won't put so much as a scratch on it again!"

Zoro took a deep breath, trying to think back to the past couple of minutes, 'Tranquil Green… Tranquil… That stupid paint made me feel… at ease? Peaceful? Relaxed? How in the world is that supposed to make me capable of cutting steel? Why could I hear the world breathing? Why did I suddenly know where those arrows were going to fire towards?'

He was forced to dodge as Mr. 3 came at him at a much faster pace. His wax arms were windmilling and smashing into the ground like cannonballs. Each hit set up clouds of snow. "Stay still you little bastard!"

'Think!' Zoro swung his swords, knocking back Mr. 3 and making his ribs scream in pain. But pain was an old friend at this point. It was nothing he couldn't power through. He thought back to a long time ago. Back when he was still training in Kōshirō's dojo.

"Sensei! Sensei!" Zoro was a tiny thing back then. He was panting as he got his sensei's attention, "Sensei! I heard that there are swordsmen around who can even cut steel! Is that true?"

Kōshirō let out a chuckle, "Yes, it's true indeed." He drew his own sword, an immaculate blade.

Zoro's reminiscing was cut short as Mr. 3 came on him again. The man had changed his attacks. He wasn't windmilling wildly anymore, but actually trying to knock Zoro's block off. Zoro fended off the attacks as best he could, parrying where he could and dodging where he couldn't. Mr. 3's wick was flaming even brighter in his frustration. The man drew back, giving Zoro a bit of breathing room.

His sensei confused him by removing a sheet of paper from his yukata. "Watch this piece of paper carefully, Zoro." Zoro did as he was bid, watching as the paper floated in the air and was then bisected with a clean cut by his sensei's sword.

Only that wasn't what happened at all. Zoro had to rub his eyes as he replayed the scene in his head. The blade – one he knew full well was incredibly sharp to a ludicrous degree – failed to even nick the piece of paper.

Mr. 3 hadn't been idle during Zoro's ruminations. 'Blast, I'm getting nowhere with this.' The figurative lightbulb – his hair – brightened above his head, 'Wait, why am I fighting this idiot like a Neanderthal? I'm better than that. I shouldn't be fighting on his turf. He should be fighting on mine.' He started producing more wax, which leaked down the backside of his armor and dribbled down his leg into the deep snow. He charged forward, getting the swordsman to start backing away again. 'Candle Lock!'

Only this time, a snake of wax wrapped around his leg, "What?!" He groaned as he crossed his swords and was forced to pit his strength against the Painted Champion. He grunted as he still managed to force Mr. 3 back and raised Yubashiri for yet another flying slash. Only he never got the chance. Another wax snake burst from the snow and actually bit into his arm, pulling it taut and nearly wrenching it from his shoulder. Yet another coiled around his left arm and forced it taut as well. Zoro growled and swung his head, letting a flying slash loose and trying to cut his bonds. But the wax had already hardened. He was stuck.

Mr. 3 started to laugh gleefully, "Ah, that's much better! Now that you're trapped… I can do this to you!" He launched a fist forward and rammed it into Zoro's abused gut.

"GACK!" Zoro refused to let go of Wadō, even as Mr. 3 started hammering blows on his body. He also took one in the head, making his eyes go unfocused for a moment.

Mr. 3 panted as he took a step back, letting out yet another evil laugh, "You don't look so good anymore." Zoro was a mass of bruises and he was pouring blood from between his lips and the wound in his head.

With his head spinning slightly, Zoro remembered back once more.

"Listen Zoro… there are swordsmen in this world who are capable of not cutting anything. These selfsame swordsmen are capable of cutting steel as easily as they could cut warm butter. And all with the same blade." His sensei smiled down at him gently, "Always remember Zoro. The pinnacle of swordsmanship is protecting that which you wish to protect… and cutting that which you wish to cut. No more, no less. A blade that only injures all that it touches… isn't really a sword."

The world had brightened again as Zoro breathed. Mr. 3's nasally, annoying voice had faded as the man continued gloating. Zoro could feel each of his blades intensely. Kitetsu's bloodlust was spiking, feeling as if its wielder was embarrassing it. Yubashiri was… different. It felt excited for some reason. Its presence was practically singing. He didn't know how he hadn't felt it before. It was practically brighter than Kitetsu itself. And Wadō… Wadō Ichimonji. His treasured blade. He could practically see the shimmering aura surrounding it. Lending him its strength. Its aura was the most harmonized with his own. No other blade he could hold would ever feel as good in his hands as it could.

And then he heard it. It was not his sensei's voice he heard then, but his goal's. "A sword without grace is naught but an iron bar."

All of their 'hearts' beat as one. A resounding roil of thunder.

Zoro flicked his head and both of his restraints fell away. His wrists were unharmed, whereas the wax bindings were split cleanly on both sides, not just the ones facing him. Mr. 3 stopped cackling and Miss Goldenweek froze in place where she had been walking, wanting very much not to be seen.

"Tch, you're a glutton for punishment!" Mr. 3 spat out. He must just have not paid enough attention in binding him. Even if they were as hard as steel, flimsy manacles like the ones he had used wouldn't hold against this monster's strength. "This time I'll bind you so tightly you can't move a single muscle!" A hydra of wax snake heads burst from the ground. They closed in on Zoro, who hadn't moved again since he was freed.

Inches away from him, his form blurred, and every single bit of wax was cut into ribbons. Mr. 3 paled to the color of curdled milk as his creations fell to the snow in dozens of pieces, "What's wrong?" Zoro asked as he took a step forward, freeing his leg as he did so, "You were talking up such a big game moments ago. Weren't you having fun pummeling me?"

"W-w-w" Mr. 3 was waving his hand in a warding motion as Zoro continued stepping forward, "W-w-we can t-talk about t-t-thi-"

Zoro vanished, "Tatsumaki!" He appeared behind Mr. 3 as the man was enveloped by a bladed whirlwind. His entire suit of armor was launched into the air with him inside of it and absolutely shredded. Bits of wax crumbled and burst from the main body, until only Mr. 3's squishy, bleeding body was left. The wax man crashed to the snow and disappeared.

Zoro sighed as he sheathed his blades. He was about to turn to Miss Goldenweek's terrified form when what seemed like the whole island began to shake.

-]|[-

Had this bastard blonde really started talking about cooking up hippos? While looking right at him? Wapol's teeth ground – literally gnashed audibly – inside his mouth. "No more games." He growled lowly, "Chess! Kuromarimo! Kill them all! Baku Baku Shock!" His body whirred as it warped, his arm turning into a cannon, "KILL THEM ALL, DAMN IT!" The cannon fired, aimed straight at Sanji.

"Tch. Rankyaku!" He flicked his leg up and fired right back. His air blade hit the cannonball in midair and sliced right through it. The two halves separated in flight and then exploded into twin blasts, deafening those closest to them. His flying kick continued unabated.

"KING WAPOL!" One of the former Drum Soldiers under the tyrant's retinue gasped and flung himself and his shield into its path. His Rankyaku cut straight through the shield and splashed on his body, shredding his clothes and instantly knocking him out, his front a myriad of bleeding scratches.

"Bastard!" More of them roared, forming a firing squad and raising their rifles at the blonde. Just as they were squeezing their triggers, all of their foreheads erupted in tiny geysers of blood. "Grk!" They yelled almost as one as they were flung back, crashing into the snow and groaning as they held their faces.

"Kyahahaha!" A voice rang up, causing a grin to light up on Sanji's face. Valentine and Usopp dropped into their midst, his slingshot almost smoking, "Good shot, Longnose-kun." Her grin was vicious as she stared at a suddenly sweating Wapol, "Oh, you're back, your majesty."

Her suddenly throaty tone sent shivers down the men's spines. How could a voice that filled them with such utter dread after what she had done to their King sound so… sensual?

Usopp pulled back on his slingshot, a confident grin on his face. If only his knees hadn't been clacking together, "You all might want to leave. These next ones won't be warning shots."

Kuromarimo simply sneered, "So you knocked down a couple of our men. You think you're all so good, huh? Fools! We're the Captains of King Wapol's guard!" He threw a volley of… balls of hair right off his afro?... at his opponents.

"Huh? Wonder how he's doing that." Sanji mumbled as they all idly dodged the rapid-fire afro hairballs that Kuromarimo was ripping off his head. The hair just kept instantly growing back.

"Like, ew." Valentine was cringing as she leapt into the air with a powerful kickoff. She floated above them with her opened parasol, "Can you not throw your skanky hair at us?"

Dalton spoke up too late, having been dodging his own hairballs, "Don't let them touch you! They!" His distraction cost him, as one smacked right into his foot and stuck him to the ground. "Damn it! The static buildup makes them extremely sticky!" He transformed again and was finally able to separate with his increased strength but took another three balls for his trouble.

"I mean, they're annoying but I don't see-" A flaming arrow struck one right next to Usopp and caused a massive conflagration, "Usopp!" Valentine yelled as Usopp screamed – more in surprise than in pain, but still some pain from the heat if nothing else.

"Hah!" Chess grinned evilly as he listened to the yell, "You underestimated us, and now you get to pay for it!"

"Why you!" A black ball shot from the flames much faster than anything Kuromarimo could throw and smacked right into Chess's face. The man cried out in agony, dropping his bow and frantically rubbing at his eyes, "How'd my Tokusei Tabasco Boshi taste, you asshole?" He looked a little singed as he leapt from the flames, but otherwise was unharmed.

"Chess!" Wapol angrily spat out and ordered his doctors to tend to his downed man. "I've had enough! Baku Baku Factory!" His entire body started deforming, growing larger, and whirring as he transformed, starting to resemble a castle with a draw bridge. His legs turned into tracks – much like one would find on a tank – which gleamed menacingly, "Wapol Castle!" He spat as his front drawbridge slammed open and a triple-barreled cannon popped out, "Wapol Cannon Barrage!" The top cannon fired with a resounding BANG, before the whole assembly rotated and the next cannon fired as well. Smoke rose in plumes in front of him and dirt exploded into the air with every retort of the guns.

The cannonballs were also incendiary, fragmentary shells. Each explosion started new fires and dozens of jagged little pieces of metal were flung at high speeds every which way. Sanji was clenching his cigarette hard as he tried his best to get all the civilian militia out of harm's way. Wapol was firing without a care in the world, harming even his own men who happened to be caught in the crossfire. "Stop it, you madman!" Dalton roared, a stream of blood dripping down his temple.

"Maaahahahaha!" Wapol cackled madly as his arms turned into cannons too, "You can't dodge forever!"

"Ten Thousand Kilogram Press!" Valentine's cry shattered Wapol's confidence… and that was before she crashed into him like a small asteroid. A massive shockwave ripped through the air as she smashed right into Wapol's massive shoulder. A thunderous crack rang through the air as a blast of snow rocketed upwards.

"YOUR MAJESTY!" All his men yelped in terror as the snow and dirt slowly cleared.

Valentine had already leap off of her target and crashed to her knees while clutching her lower back. Usopp and Sanji both used Soru to get to her side, "M-my tailbone!" She cried out, "What the hell is that guy made of? I think I broke something! I've smashed full-force into the ground before and barely even felt a thing!" She let out a weary chuckle as Sanji lifted her into his arms, "Fuck, I really am going to have to learn that stupid Tekkai, aren't I?"

As they spoke, Wapol was finally revealed. His left shoulder was very obviously dislocated, it hung about a foot lower than his right. Both of his treads were shattered and peppering the snow, and he himself was howling in agony.

"PROTECT THE KING!" Chess roared hoarsely as the doctors went to work, "HURRY DAMN IT!" Chess, Kuromarimo, and the remaining Drum Soldiers all formed a phalanx around the Tyrant King, shields at the ready with guns behind.

"NOT THIS TIME!" Dalton – in full bison mode – rammed straight through the blockade with a thundering of hooves, "LEAVE THIS COUNTRY, WAPOL!" He smashed straight through and gored his former King, knocking both wind and bloody spittle from the walking tin stomach.

"DALTON!" Chess furiously fired his biggest arrows at the man, while Kuromarimo raced forward. Dalton wasn't able to dodge everything even in his half-n-half form and took a massive arrow right through the thigh. He grunted in agony even as he swung a fist, knocking three teeth from Kuromarimo's mouth.

He trembled as he transformed back into human form to avoid a retort of gunfire, his shrinking body his only defense as he crashed to a knee. Sanji appeared and flung all the soldiers away, before picking Dalton up with a grunt of strain and leaping away. They landed far from Usopp and Valentine, in an effort to not provide such an easily grouped target for their enemies. Dalton let out a howl of pain as his leg jostled from the movement.

He was about speak when another voice rang out, and it was a voice that made him positively curdle in fear, "How disgraceful." The voice was just as nasally as Wapol's, but a bit deeper. "You can't do anything right, little brother."

The man who exited from the Hippo Ship's mouth had pink hair in a stupid-looking haircut. His face was long and blocky, while he himself was pretty lanky. The effect was that his head looked like a mushroom. He had a puffy black goatee and a mustache, while he wore a 'regal' armor that really just looked like a mismatched mess constructed by the colorblind. He had a violet cape that covered his right side, shoulder-pads, orange pants, fluffy shoes, and a weasel-skin scarf on his left shoulder.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Sanji had an even look on his face as they rested. He was tempted to try to help Dalton pull the arrow out, but they had no medical staff around, and Sanji knew that a thigh wound like that might have nicked something major.

"Grk!" Wapol bit his tongue as his shoulder was finally fixed, "B-big brother!"

"Big brother?!" The Straw Hats repeated in varying tones of shock.

"Th-that's M-Musshuru!" Dalton – normally fearless – was almost quaking in his boots. How could he not? This man… his powers… you couldn't fight what he could do. "Don't let his abilities touch you!" He roared, "DON'T EVEN BREATH NEAR HIM! THAT MAN…!" He growled out to his allies, "ALMOST ANNIHILATED THIS COUNTRY WITH HIS POISON TEN YEARS AGO!"

Musshuru sneered, "You talk too much, hippo-head." He vanished in a burst of speed.

"Holy shit!" Usopp cringed as Sanji stopped his punch with a kick of his own, "He's just as fast as Sanji!"

"Oi!" Musshuru grinned, "You should have paid attention, blondie." A cloud of purple spores erupted from his body.

"Devil Fruit!" Several yelled as Sanji blew the encroaching cloud away with a dull Rankyaku. It was more of a wall of wind than a blade, all truth told.

"You have to burn it!" Dalton yelled, "He ate the Noko Noko no Mi! His only weakness is fire! That's why the former king exiled him to Kilauea, the Land of Fire!"

Sanji grinned at that information, "Fire huh?"

"M-Musshuru-sama!" Chess started to choke as all around them, their men started going down from the poison. All except the doctors, who had priority on the antidotes, just as Wapol himself did. "Y-you got us too!"

"And?" Musshuru said, sneering cruelly, "All you hippo-heads are irrelevant. Only my stupid little brother must survive. If you can't find an antidote, curse yourselves for your lack of strength in the afterlife.."

"Why you!" Sanji started spinning like a hurricane. The friction started to make his legs glow, before he ignited into flames! "Diable Jambe!" Sanji roared as he raised his glowing limb. Musshuru's eyes popped open in surprise as the blonde spat at him, "Take this, bastard!" He vanished and buried his glowing leg into the man's stomach.

Musshuru gasped as all the air was forced from his lungs, even as the flesh on his chest seared. Bloody spittle flew from his lips, as Sanji bared his teeth around his cigarette. Musshuru's eyes looked unfocused momentarily, before he set his feet and stuck a hand in Sanji's face. A cloud of purple spores puffed out. Sanji crashed to the ground, "You DARE strike me?!" He punted Sanji in the ribs, even as the blonde coughed and writhed on the floor, in agony from the poison starting to burn through him. Diable Jambe was long gone now, unable to slow the advance of the spores.

"Sanji!" Usopp cried out, raising his slingshot, "Kaen Bosh-"

Valentine flung herself into him, throwing him to the floor, "Ten Thousand Kilo- KYA!" She raised her weight to the max to up her durability as much as she could, before the cannonball Wapol fired at Usopp exploded on her body. She crashed to the snow; the sleeve of her jacket burned away, along with much of the skin. Her flesh was already starting to bubble and blister as her agonized cries rang through the air.

"VALENTINE!" Usopp roared, ready to stand his ground for his crewmates.

He didn't get the chance as the island started to rumble as if it was being hit by an earthquake. As one, those still able to move turned towards the source and paled drastically, "You have got to be kidding me!"

-]|[-

Robin's entire body ached, and her teeth were chattering from the cold. They couldn't really see anything through the cloud cover, so Luffy had moved a bit farther away from the cliff face as they climbed swiftly. The wind was still a factor, but not nearly as much as it had been earlier. They had tried to talk on the climb, but the roaring of Luffy's jets were so loud that – combined with the wind – they literally couldn't hear a thing even if they (and by that they meant Luffy) tried screaming it out.

Finally, after another long while of flying upwards, they finally rose above the clouds, as it had been a lower storm. The wind was much thinner here. They had felt uncomfortably warm near their legs from Luffy's fruit, but they had been climbing so fast and the wind was so cold that it had remained only uncomfortable.

It had taken a while for Luffy to learn how to control his new ability well. He had been experimenting on the way up, seeing as they were in figurative silence and had eventually managed to figure out how to control the output to make them faster, as well as to make the flight smoother. He could make the stream of plasma coming from his feet flare out, but he hadn't done that for more than a second because Robin had clenched onto him and had made certain he could see her pain-filled expression. He was also extremely worried about quickening the pace with which Vivi's fever would rise if it got too hot. It took every ounce of concentration he had to keep his powers as far away from them as possible, lest he turn them to ash himself.

Finally, the view of the top was within reach. Luffy whooped out his success with a massive grin on his face as they gradually slowed down. Vivi managed to blearily open her eyes for a moment when she felt the ride slowing, and a smile slipped back onto her face as her head dropped back to his shoulder. They broke the top of the mountain and Luffy cut the jets. They rose about a hundred meters more just off of momentum, before Luffy Geppō jogged them down to the massive plateau.

"I-I-I w-was-snt ex-x-x-xpec-cting s-s-secrets-s-s, Cap-p-ptain." Robin managed to get out when they landed, "I -h-h-had no id-d-d-ea you ate a D-d-d-devil Fruit." It was still freezing, even if the sky above was perfectly clear and not a flake was falling and now that cold was biting into her even more.

"I had no idea either." Vivi murmured lowly as Luffy jogged forward to the gates.

"Shishishi!" Luffy snickered at their words, "Well, you felt how hot it was." He replied, "I've had that power for ten years. Ever since I was seven…" He continued to laugh, "But I've gotten more use of it in the past couple months than I ever did before. It was just too dangerous. I could only ever train it with grandpa."

"Th-that m-makes sens-s-s-e." Robin replied as they made it to the massive castle gate, "It's-s-s open?"

Luffy blinked, "Huh, it is." He squeezed them through without adjusting the door much. He had been about to close the doors behind them when he heard the chirping, "Eh?" He blinked again and looked around, before finally looking up and seeing the nest, "Oh. Well, okay then." He turned and made his way in, "HELLO!" He yelled, and grimaced when both his passengers winced at the loud noise. "Sorry!" He whispered as loud as he could.

"It's okay…" Vivi moaned, "A-as long as you get the doctor's attention, it should be fine…"

"D-Do what you n-n-need to." Robin said as he sat them down on a bench. Vivi flopped, completely without energy and started resting on Robin's lap. Robin barely had more energy than that and was just able to lift a shaky hand and put it into Vivi's own. Luffy quickly got rid of the ropes and sword sheathes he had been 'wearing' to secure the two ladies and started using Soru all around, searching for the doctor.

"HELLOOOOO!" Luffy raised his hands to cup his mouth as he screamed the word out. He was in an entirely different area from the girls, though he was only a quick Soru away at all times. "WE NEED A DOCTOR! I HAVE TWO SICK CREWMATES!" He started kicking doors open and glancing inside, nervousness starting to niggle in his mind. "No, no, no, no, not after all this!" He growled increasingly desperately with every empty room he found and every door he slammed. "DAMN IT!" He roared, punching a wall so hard the whole thing crumbled.

There wasn't enough time for the run back to the girls to be a walk of shame, but it certainly felt like one. When he got back, he almost cringed at the sound of Robin's low, weak laughter, "Sh-she's not h-h-here, is sh-sh-she?" The woman was starting to droop. "I w-w-wonder what t-t-this Kureha woman, w-will thi-think when she comes home to two corpses?"

Despite her joke, Luffy could tell Robin was going to collapse again soon.

Vivi herself had finally, finally succumbed to her exhaustion. The poor girl was straight up drooling onto Robin's lap now, dead to the world even as her drool froze. Luffy took a step forward and then everything went to hell.

The whole mountain seemed to shake, and Luffy had to hurry to steady both of the women he was taking care of. The chandeliers were rattling ominously up in the rafters and several things fell over. "What the hell was that?" He gasped as the shaking slowly lessened and he took a peek outside. His eyes bugged out. The top sections of all of the Drum Rockies had been covered in snow. Now, he could almost see bare rock on some of them. He clenched a fist, "What is going on down there?" He made his way back in, and saw that Robin was out once more. His head drooping, he grabbed them one by one and placed them both onto a bed on the next floor. There were books everywhere.

Medical books.

Clenching his fist, he swallowed his distaste and opened one of them up. But no matter how hard he tried to focus; it was all just useless jargon to him. He couldn't understand a thing.

-]|[-

Minutes earlier…

The trip back towards Big Horn had been at a slower pace. Nami had kind of felt somewhat out-of-sorts the entire way back, both for losing her temper earlier with the poor bunny and the state her friends were in. she just felt absolutely awful over still being unable to help her friends, even after all her training. All of the medical knowhow she had taught herself had been useless on the ship, and she hadn't been strong enough to help ease the burden on her Captain and lover. Luffy was alone now, caring for the both of them.

She stopped short, her expression flat and her right eyebrow twitching as she stared at the creatures ahead of her. She sucked her teeth unpleasantly as her hand drifted to her staff, "Alright, I'm really not in a good mood right now." The adult versions of the rabbit she had hit earlier were massive. They were way bigger than Luffy. Hell, you could probably stand two of Luffy on top of each other and the higher one's head would probably only come up to the tallest Lapahn's chest. They were big and buff and were flexing in her direction, angry looks on their faces.

And of course, the leader – and definitely the biggest and meanest looking. It even had a scar over its left eye - was holding hands with the one she had smashed earlier. Her eyebrow twitched again, "Look, I'm sorry for hitting you. My friends were sick and might be dying and you were in our way and why the hell am I talking as if you guys understand me? I'm losing it aren't I?" Her tone turned completely sardonic by the end.

The leader roared, echoed by dozens of its fellows as it lunged at her. It almost looked graceful in the sky, looking like it was swan-diving towards her. Or like it was going to give her a warm, fluffy hug. The gleaming, razor-sharp claws looking to dice her into little ribbons, however, did not look inviting in the slightest. "Alright asshole, you asked for it!" She yelled as she dodged back.

With the bitter cold, she didn't even need the Cold Bubbles. She took the section with the heating elements and pressed a button. A vacuum sound started whirring within, and the little baton started spewing a mass of red Heat Bubbles. She grinned as a massive updraft kicked in, holding the suddenly freaking-out Lapahn in the air for a moment before flinging it backwards and knocking a whole host of its compatriots down like bowling pins.

She was really glad she had sat down with Usopp after their raid on Nezumi's base. She had watched him remove most of the useless party stuff to turn it into an actual weapon. "HAD ENOUGH?!" Whoo boy, she really was turning into one of these meatheads, wasn't she? But hey, if it intimidated the Lapahn, so be it.

Only no, they had not had enough. The whole host of Lapahns roared loud enough she swore she felt her bones tingle. "Oh, fuck me!" She turned tail and ran as the whole lot of them leapt into the air and started body slamming into the snow. "Damn it! I'm freezing and already feeling like shit! Leave me alone!"

But the Lapahns were quick for such massive creatures. She was rapidly surrounded by the entire herd and had to dodge every which way to stay safe. Her Kami-E, Soru, and Geppō began to get one heck of a workout.

Every opportunity she had, she tried to kick their asses. But her legs weren't as strong as Sanji's, so her kicks didn't really make it through all the fur and blubber. They hurt the giant, man-eating rabbits sure, but not overly much. Her staff was doing a better job, but only when she aimed for joints or managed to get a hit to the head in.

She was kind of in the groove of the fight if she was honest with herself, which was why she was quite confused when the leader started making a different noise. Almost a chuffing. The whole herd broke off and she managed to squeeze through a hole with Soru. She glanced back at them as she ran, and question marks rose above her head as they simply began to jump up and down in place. Every leap was accompanied with a crash as they slammed butt-first into the ground so hard that the snow didn't stop them at all. A rumbling din rose with every crash. Thuds started rising with higher intensity. They were jumping higher and crashing harder. They were starting to sync up.

"What the hell are the-" Her breath caught as she choked, her eyes widening, "No. No! Nononononono! STOP IT! ARE YOU ALL CRAZY?!"

Yes. Yes, they were.

A massive CRACK seemed to tear right through her eardrums. She dropped to her knees and clenched her hands over her ears, trying to get the ringing to stop. She staggered to her feet and her face paled as white as a sheet. All the snow, ice, and loose dirt and rocks on the Drum Rockies as well as the rest of the surrounding mountains had gotten shaken loose by those thrice-damned rabbits treating the earth as a drum. "…Luffy…Vivi…Robin…" Her first thoughts went to her friends. She grit her teeth and turned tail, using Soru much harder and faster than she ever had before, "Please… STAY SAFE!" She screamed as she tried to hopelessly outrun the avalanche.

The trees and rocks and woods in the way did nothing but slow her down. She ripped her jacket's sleeve on a low branch and almost had an eye taken out by another. She escaped with a scratch on her forehead instead. "Must go faster. Must go faster!" She chanted to herself, the rumbling behind her increasing in volume.

This wasn't working. It was catching up.

She broke through the woods and came upon a cliff with a lone tree growing near it. It wasn't a huge fall, but it was a big one. She grunted, "Oh my legs are going to be killing me later!" Without missing a step, she flung herself over the edge and continued to pump her legs, jumping higher into the sky.

She narrowly missed getting smashed by a Lapahn as it came barreling out of the forest. "YOU PERSISTENT LITTLE BASTARDS! TAKE A HINT!" In her glorious rage, she kicked out and finally managed a Rankyaku. "I did it! You assholes were good for something!" A small one. It barely beaned one of the avalanche-surfing murder bunnies on the head. Didn't cut it at all. But it did visibly knock its head back and caused a massive Lapahn pileup. She winced as she saw the massive crash, "Oooooh yeahhhh, sorry about that." She cringed lightly again as her leg flared in pain, "Yeah, that's going to hurt in the morning."

Nami knew she had to push through it though. She had to stay in the air until the avalanche was done and over with. She wasn't nearly durable enough to take a hit from this massive monster. Nami followed the Lapahns on their struggle, turning in the air as she did so. And then something caught her attention and made her turn away from them entirely. Flashes of light, flames, and explosions were coming from the far distance. Near the coast.

Nami shrieked. "Guys! Dalton! The townspeople! My treasure!"

-]|[-

"You have got to be kidding me." Zoro said blandly as he stared at the oncoming rush of white death. A crunching thud behind him alerted him to the fact that Miss Goldenweek had fallen to her butt. A quick glance back told him the girl had tears of terror running down her face. "Hey, kid." She glanced at him, "Stay behind me." Her eyes widened, and she scurried to do as he asked.

He took a deep breath, adrenaline screaming in his veins. He closed his eyes once more, having an easier time falling into the… trance… when he did so. The world fell away, and yet it didn't. It was as if he could see even with his eyes closed. Mr. 3's life force had dimmed by quite a bit. The only emotion he felt from Miss Goldenweek was terror.

And the avalanche? Well, that was coming forward like a stampede, aiming to crush everything in its path. He could feel it well. Could feel tiny life forms being snuffed out by the dozens and hundreds, crushed under the weight. Could feel how much rock and broken trees and snow was barreling towards them unrelentingly. He placed Wadō in his mouth but kept the other two blades sheathed at his side, his hands resting on the hilts. He and his blades were as one. He 'saw' his own spirit, his own power flowing into them.

It was almost upon them. Goldenweek covered herself as best she could, not wanting to look at her end. Because of this, neither of them noticed his blades start to shimmer, or the wisps of black that stared emitting from his hands and his blades. And then Zoro's eyes snapped open, "Santōryū Iai: Bakuryūha!" He drew Kitetsu and Yubashiri in twin flashes of light. His left hand held Kitetsu in a normal grip, while Yubashiri in his right was held in a reverse grip. The roaring of the cutting winds that rose overwhelmed even the noise of the avalanche. A sideways dervish of winds blades cut through the roiling mass of snow and rocks like a giant snake barreling forwards. The snow passed them on either side, his attack making them part around them as if a giant wedge was before them.

Finally, everything died. His attack. The avalanche. The noises. Miss Goldenweek stopped clenching her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut as she registered the fact she was still alive. She blinked, removing her hands from her ears, continuing to blink owlishly as the fact that she was still alive actually registered.

Miss Goldenweek stared at Zoro, who was panting on one knee as if he had run a marathon. Her head spun helplessly side to side, her mind like a skipping record. All around them were high walls – nearly twenty feet high in some areas – of dirty snow and rocks and other assorted paraphernalia. And then she finally took in what was before them. Or rather, before Zoro. Behind him was snow and her. In front of him… the path Zoro had cut to save them hadn't just blown away the avalanche, it had blown away all the snow that had already settled. They were down to bare dirt which looked like a massive screw had passed by. "Damn!" Zoro growled, "I cut more than just what I wanted. I need more training."

She stared, mouth agape in utter shock, 'We… we tried to fight this guy?' There was just zero way they guy was worth a mere ฿30,000,000. Just no way. She was so lost in her thoughts, she didn't even notice Zoro's breathing even out and him stand up. She didn't even notice him walking towards her. She did, however, notice his hand dropping on her head, and she had a mini freak-out when it did. She let out a little shriek, falling backwards.

"What are you doing?" He asked her, an eyebrow raised, and his hand still where he had patted her head a moment before.

"Y…you're… not going to hurt me?" Goldenweek stammered.

Normally she was much more even headed than this. She hadn't been partnered with Mr. 3 just because she could paint his wax creations after all. But this had been one blow to her psyche after another. Her paints failing, not once, not twice, but four times total – as she had drawn Tranquil Green three times on him – in quick succession. Her partner being taken down despite his best efforts. Them failing their mission. (Obviously) And now this? On top of it being freezing?! She was way past shaken. She wasn't even on the same island as 'ruffled feathers.'

Zoro snorted, "Why the hell would I do that?" She cautiously got to her feet as he started walking forwards. He put a hand on her shoulder and spoke a few words before he passed her, "I have to thank you."

"For what?" She had schooled her expression once more, but her heart was still thundering in her chest.

"For helping me get stronger than I was, of course." Her eyes widened as he continued walking forward, "I'd leave your little band of morons while you still can, girlie. They aren't going to be around for much longer. Now… time to head to the coast. Pretty sure Dartbrow will be trying to dig his dumb ass out of the snow right about now." He continued walking forward purposefully.

"But…" He stopped and turned around when she spoke up, raising an eyebrow, "The coast is that way." She pointed to her left, his right.

"Grk." Zoro twitched and started to sweat as she dropped her arm, "Right. I knew that. Just making sure you did too." And then he turned left and started to climb the snowbank.

Miss Goldenweek started to giggle helplessly.

-]|[-

At the same time that Zoro was finishing up near the mountains, the forces near the coast were picking themselves up as best they could. In the mayhem of the avalanche, Wapol had ordered his wooly hippo Robson into 'serious mode,' where the hippo actually stood up and gained about three feet in height. The hippo had raced forward at a rather silly speed for such a giant creature and Wapol had grabbed his brother. The thinner man had complained, wanting to stamp more of these fools out beforehand, but Wapol had reminded him that they could easily do that after they had secured the castle. They had abandoned all of their men and even their doctors behind, not caring in the slightest for any of them.

Sanji was still and lifeless, his skin dull. Dalton had broken the arrow in his leg and was therefore starting to bleed out without the plug there anymore. Valerie was gritting her teeth in agony as Usopp helplessly stared at his friends. Not a single one of his tricks could help any of them. And then members of the Isshi-20 started rushing forwards. "We will begin the operation!" A chorus sounded off.

Usopp growled and raised his slingshot, "Stay away from my friends, you bastards!" He was fully under the assumption that these men would be bastards just like the tyrant was. He was wrong.

The doctors took steps back in fear, not liking the look of rage in his eye. Finally, one of them stepped forward, his palms still raised unthreateningly, "Please, allow us to help your friends, young man. She is in agony!"

Usopp scoffed, "You're Wapol's doctors!" His slingshot continued to strain audibly.

"Not willingly." Came the solemn reply, "Never willingly. If we didn't work for him, he would have had us killed." He bowed his head, "Just as he did all the rest…"

Usopp steamed, remembering the story Dalton had told them, before he deflated and allowed his arm to drop, "Please… help them!"

The eyewear of every single doctor in the area glinted, "We will begin the operation!" The chorus was filled with determination. One doctor simply opened Sanji's mouth and started pouring a blue liquid down his throat. Before their eyes, Sanji regained his color and started moving once more. A team of three helped remove Valentine's burnt clothes – one thankfully provided a covering for her modesty – and started to work on the burn. Their medical techniques were top notch. Usopp watched in awe as they sprayed various things and cleaned her wounds.

Valerie managed to speak as the pain started going away, "Will it scar?" Her voice was timid, uncharacteristically so. Roughly half of her right arm had been blown in the explosion. Her durability meant she could tank the hit, but she wasn't exactly made of steel.

"I'm afraid so." The head doctor working on her replied solemnly, "It will be very faint, but this is a rather large area. Our techniques are years ahead of other doctors, but even we can't heal this perfectly."

"Kyahahaha!" Valerie could only force a smile and a laugh.

Off to the side, Dalton was having his leg wrapped up, "Will you heal them as well?" He asked, inclining his head to the former Drum soldiers as well as Chess and Kuromarimo.

"Our oath demands it." One confirmed with a heavy sigh, "Who they are in life must not matter to a doctor. We heal. But that does not mean we can't prioritize good people first."

Dalton quirked a smile as more of the villagers started showing up with handcuffs and other jailing equipment, "Plus it gave us time to get the cuffs ready, didn't it?"

Sanji stood up, steaming mad, "That mushroom bastard!" he steamed, "Wait till I get my shoes on him!"

"You will sit down, or I will sedate you." A doctor raised a syringe and gave it a tiny squirt, "You have to let the medicine work. No strenuous activity for at least an hour, or you're going to crash from another flare-up."

"But he's headed for Drum Castle! That's where Vivi-chwan and Robin-chwan are! And maybe even Nami-swan as well!" Sanji protested.

"And where you're not going to be, because you'll just get sick again! Now sit!" The doctor commanded, "I have others to work on too! Don't make me assign a babysitter!" Sanji ground his teeth impotently.

-]|[-

"Kakakakakak! Looks like someone pissed off the Lapahns." Doctor Kureha cackled as her reindeer Chopper pulled her sleigh up one of the massive ropeways leading to Drum Castle. These had once driven carriages loaded with people up to the Castle for the King of Drum to speak to his subjects. They had fallen under disrepair under Wapol, and slowly fallen out of use entirely. Now they weren't even sure if any of the others remained functional.

Most other people would have been surprised that the reindeer answered back, "Yeah. I wonder what caused it? Can't have been a person, right? Who on this island would go out in an approaching storm like this?" They watched the avalanche thunder forwards, crushing woods and animal life alike.

"Well, whatever the case, we may be coming back down sooner than we thought. Again." She said dryly, "Who knows how many are inju-..." She trailed off and Chopper almost missed a step as they watched part of the avalanche get split apart by a massive sideways tornado that was howling even as far as they were. "…That was… impressive. Kakakakakak!" Kureha started to laugh as she urged Chopper to continue forwards. Soon, they easily passed the diminishing storm and had almost reached their home. Right as they were about to land, Chopper slowed and narrowed his eyes, sniffing the air. "What is it?" She asked as she dismounted and unhooked Chopper with the ease of practice.

"There's someone here." Chopper wasn't a reindeer anymore. Or at least he didn't look like one. Now he was a hulking, humanoid figure with massive muscles. His antlers seemed to have vanished, or they were under his pink hat.

"Hmph, well, let's go greet our guest, shall we?" Kureha strode forwards, seemingly without a care in the world. They quickly entered Drum Castle with a passing, approving comment over the birds not having been disturbed, and made it to the room where Chopper had smelled the intruders. Kureha's eyes widened as she took in the two clearly sick women on the same bed, and the tall man holding both of their hands.

Luffy's face lit up when he saw them, "Are you the doctor?" There was a cautious note of hope in his voice.

"Kakakakak, that I am, brat." Kureha responded, a confident grin on her face.

Luffy immediately fell to his knees before them, "Please, help my friends! They're both very sick!"

"Get up brat. I'll take good care of them. And stay out of our way." Kureha strode forwards and poked Vivi's head. Her eyes widened, "108.3?! She's barely alive!" She turned to Chopper and missed how Luffy's eyes started to sparkle when he finally noticed the reindeer who was now tiny and barely came up to his knee. "Chopper get the Phenicol and the Cardiotonic. And the Chialcillin while you're at it. She seems to have some form of infection. Not a local one either. Where'd she get sick?" She directed the last question to Luffy, who snapped out of his Chopper-induced excitement. She poked Robin as well, before shaking her head as Robin's temperature was fine.

"Ah!" Luffy seemed to have a light bulb go off over his head, as he pulled a little notebook from his pocket and handed it to her, "They collapsed after we left Little Garden."

Kureha almost didn't need to look at the book to figure out what Vivi had based on that statement, but she did her due diligence and checked it anyway, taking note of each of their names as she did so. She also checked Vivi's thigh just to be sure, "It's a good thing you got her to me." She mumbled darkly, "Another two days and she would have been dead. I always keep redundant stores of vaccines for diseases that are supposedly 'wiped out.'" She spat in disgust, not paying any attention to the suddenly-pale-as-milk Luffy. "Vivi over here will be fine. You got her to me in time. Now, what about your other friend…"

"Robin's sickness was way weirder than Vivi's." Luffy told her, not noticing the old 'youthful' woman paling more and more the further she read. "We didn't really think it was as dangerous as Vivi's since she didn't have a massive fever or any-"

He didn't get to say another word as Kureha suddenly snapped at Chopper, "Chopper, you're responsible for the blue-haired one! She was bitten by Kestia! I have to start on the dark-haired one immediately!" She ran from the room, not noticing Chopper and Luffy gape at her afterimage.

Luffy swallowed heavily, "I'm… guessing that wasn't normal…"

Chopper hadn't stopped working, but responded anyway without really realizing that Luffy was treating him normally, "I…I don't think I've ever seen her like that…" He started walking to Vivi and started the treatment, "Whatever the dark-haired one has must be really serious. But you'll have to trust her. She's the best. She would have been able to diagnose Kestia even without your notes."

Finally, Luffy exploded as he once again realized he was talking to a reindeer who could answer back, "Woooow! You're so cool! You're like a doctor tanuki! You have an awesome nose and you can talk!"

Chopper's jaw dropped even as his hands continued to move, "W-w-w-w-what the hell are you saying?! You think praising me will make me happy? Asshole!" The massive grin on his face gave him away.

-]|[-

Nami had to rest for at least a couple minutes after having to use Geppō for so long while the avalanche tore through the area. She had sat down and eaten some basic jerky – they hadn't been allowed to leave town without at least some backup supplies – and rest her legs. Once she had gotten up, she had found the Lapahns buried in the snow they themselves had caused. She had almost declared good riddance to the nuisances, before she had seen the heart-wrenching scene of the baby Lapahn trying futilely to dig out what must have been its parent. "Damn my bleeding heart." She cursed before walking over. She tried to simply lift the large rabbit out as the smaller one cried piteously but didn't have nearly the strength to do so. Especially not with her thighs and calves still burning dully. She had just barely cracked a thousand pounds on her weights when they had come in sight of Drum, and these things had to weigh at least five or six. She'd throw out her back before she got them out.

So, she used her brains and whipped out her Clima-Tact. The Lapahn baby stilled when it saw it, and almost started growling angrily before Nami broke off just the heating section. "Heat Balls!" The device whirred to life and started spewing the balls directly into the snow, beginning to melt it. it took at least two minutes before enough had melted for the Lapahn to be able to lift itself out. She sighed and took a trembly step back (from the minor quake it caused) before asking, "You can get the rest out, right?"

"Growr…" The Lapahn responded, looking to her son – who was attached to her leg like a limpet – in confusion. The little baby growled a few things back while pointing at Nami with a claw. The adult's eyes widened before it surprised Nami by bowing to her in thanks.

Nami smiled, "You're welcome. I need to go now. See ya." She vanished in a Soru. As she ran, she was unaware that she was on a collision course with their enemies. She was running directly for the coast, because she knew that was where everyone had to be.

She almost missed the angry roar due to the wind, "YOU! You're the hippo bitch who hit me!" And then a massive boom rang through the air. Nami dodged nimbly as the snow where she had been a moment before exploded. She took stock of the situation quickly, growling out as she realized what had happened.

"Wapol!" She snarled, taking her Clima-Tact out again and preparing for a fight. She sweated a little as she noticed the other passenger on the hippo. She had no idea how strong the other guy might be, but if he was on the hippo and hadn't been on their ship originally, there was a good chance he might be strong. Because if that was the case, then Wapol had gotten him as backup. "Who the hell are you calling a hippo, fatass?!" She gave him the middle finger.

Musshuru growled, "Don't insult my little brother, peasant. We're royalty, you dumb hippo-head!" He raised his hand which started glowing purple, "In fact, you can just die. I'm tired of you hippo-heads wasting our time. Snow Spore!" A massive cloud of spores started flying towards her and engulfing the area.

Nami grinned, "Oh, you're going to wish you ran into someone else." She quickly adjusted her Clima-Tact, "Cyclone Tempo!" She whipped her arm and the cool and heat poles detached from the thunder one in a X formation. The winds created formed a small cyclone that pulled in all the spores and made them change direction. Wapol was panicking as they were engulfed. The cloud never reached her at all and when the boomerang returned to her hand, the cloud was clearing. Musshuru was glaring hatefully at her as Wapol was hurriedly digging into his pockets, choking as he did so. He managed to find what he was looking for and jabbed himself in the leg with a syringe. Color returned to him even as he started growling furiously. He jabbed another syringe into Robson. Nami smirked and licked her lips. 'Target acquired.'

"Damn you…" Wapol growled, "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!" A cannon popped out of his chest and blasted his brother at close range. Nami gasped, her eyes wide in shock as he turned on his own family. Musshuru himself had a look of agony as he fell off the hippo and onto the snow. "Getting you was a mistake, you damn hippo! You're just as useless as the rest of them! No, more useless even, since you don't care who you hit with those damn poisonous spores!" He spat at his brother, who was raising his head shakily.

"Damn you, Wapol!" Musshuru managed to spit out, as he struggled to raise himself and collapsed back down, coughing up some blood.

"Go, Robson! We have a castle to take back! And once I do, I'll come back and kill every single one of you hippos!" Robson took off.

Only Nami wasn't going to let him just get away. She appeared in front of him in a Soru, Wapol's eyes popping out of his head in shock, "BASTARDS LIKE YOU DESERVE EVERY BIT OF PAIN YOU GET!" She shrieked as she jabbed him in the nuggets with the thunder pole. Usopp had installed a taser function, at her request. Wapol rapidly started frying under the electric assault, every muscle in his body spasming. Robson just kept running and carrying them without a care to his master's safety. He only followed orders after all. Finally, Nami ended the assault before the battery drained entirely. There was a scorch mark on Wapol's crotch, "Blergh, now I have to disinfect this thing." She made a face in distaste as she reassembled the Clima-Tact. She had already picked every pocket he had on him and had at least three vials of antidote in her pockets now, on top of some other knickknacks.

She jumped off Robson and readied for the fight, seeing as Musshuru was getting back to his feet. Wapol continued on his merry way, slumped backwards on his hippo, smoke wafting from his form in unconsciousness.

-]|[-

"W-w-w-w-what do you mean, join your crew?!" Chopper gaped at the human who had brought the two girls up to the castle. Immediately upon leaving Doctorine alone with the two patients inside the treatment room, the male human – who had been kicked out two hours ago for asking too many questions and being a general distraction - had speedily grabbed Chopper to talk with him. Chopper had been shocked nearly speechless when the human had started speaking with him as if he was just another human. He didn't even mention Chopper's appearance! The second Chopper had confirmed that he was a doctor as well, Luffy had started pestering him about joining his crew! "Look at me! I'm a reindeer! I can't live with humans! I have fur and antlers and…. And a blue nose! I'm a monster!"

"Pfff…" Luffy blew an unintentional raspberry at the word, "You're funny!" He started to laugh gaily, "You're just a tanuki that ate a Devil Fruit, right? You don't even rate a level one on the monster scale! You're smart and you're apparently an awesome doctor! I totally want you on my crew!"

"Tanuki?! I'M A REINDEER, MORON! I JUST SAID THAT!" Chopper screamed at him before the rest of the words penetrated and he switched to staring at him in undisguised shock, "B-b-" He started getting emotional, "BAKA! I don't need praise from you humans!"

"Shishishi! Right! A Half-tanuki half-reindeer!" Luffy laughed again, seeing him noodle around, "Anyway, you think the girls are going to be alright? You said it was unusual for the old hag to react like that, right?"

"Ol- SHHHH!" Chopper hurriedly shushed him, "Never call her that! She'll kill you! AND I'M NOT A TANUKI!"

Luffy scoffed, "I just call it like I see it. And if she could, that's all my life was worth. Anyway, the girls?"

"It was unusual." Chopper admitted, "I've been studying under her for years. I've never seen a reaction like that from her." He smiled, "But Doctorine is the best around. Your crewmates will be just-"

"Fine. Kakakakak!" Doctor Kureha rounded the corner with a bit of a raised eyebrow and hidden smile. She almost couldn't believe that Chopper was willingly sitting with the brat whose name she still didn't know, "I've already administered the treatment. They were exceptionally lucky that you were able to get them to me. Who are you anyway, kid?"

"Monkey D. Luffy. I'm going to be the Pirate King." Luffy introduced himself, causing Chopper's jaw to drop at the confident assertion.

"Kakakakak!" Kureha started to cackle loudly, "Well you've got the guts for it, that's for sure!" She grinned madly at him, "And the Devil's luck on top of it too. Vivi might have been successfully treated by a lesser doctor, but if you hadn't brought Robin to me, she would have been worse than just dead."

Luffy swallowed the lump in his throat, "What were the problems with them?"

"I'm not explaining things twice." Kureha said before uncorking her bottle and taking a deep swig, "Come on. They were starting to stir before I came to get you both. This will be a valuable lesson for Chopper too."

Luffy ran ahead of her and barged into the room, his face splitting into a beaming smile when he saw the two girls awake. Robin was still paler than normal, but she had even managed to sit up on her own after Kureha had left. "Vivi, Robin!" He almost started to tear up, "You're okay!"

"Thanks to you, Luffy." Vivi smiled at him. She was still laying down with a cold compress on her head, "And the doctor too, obviously."

"Luffy…" He turned his head, idly registering that was only the second time Robin had ever called him by name. She had a smile on her face but looked to be struggling for words. He walked over and gently look her hand, giving her a questioning look, "You… You came back for me." She sounded small, and very un-Robin-like.

"This again?" Luffy let go of her hand and mussed her hair up, much to her visible chagrin, "It doesn't matter what anyone or anything throws at me. I'll never leave a nakama behind."

Robin swallowed and felt her chest squeeze. Her traitorous heart started once more remembering those words, 'There is nothing more ridiculous than being born in this world to be alone... Someday you will meet brave friends who will protect you…' And for the first time in over a decade, the feeling wasn't ruthlessly crushed. She smiled a little weakly at him, but it was a smile, nonetheless.

"So!" Luffy exclaimed, turning to Kureha, "What did they have, Doc?"

Kureha finished the swig of her ale and carelessly tossed the bottle into the trash without so much as a glance, "Vivi over here was bitten by an ancient tick named Kestia." She sat in a chair and inclined it back, "The mark was on her thigh. It was that purple bruise your crew found." She uncorked another bottle, "They live in hot, steamy jungles. Kakakak, or at least that's where they used to live. The World Government did everything in their power to wipe the species out decades ago, so congratulations on finding probably the one place in the world they never touched."

Vivi groaned at her luck, "Stupid ancient islands."

"Kakakak!" Kureha laughed a little more, "The Kestia tick carries in its saliva a deadly strain of bacteria which ravages the victim for five days. Exactly five days. The victim will rapidly develop a fever which will never fall below 104 degrees once it hits that mark, and then rapidly develops into a superinfection which leads to myocarditis, arteritis, and encephalitis."

Robin and Vivi – who actually understood the terms – curdled.

Kureha smirked at their understanding, "You were bitten three days ago, I believe. Two days from now it would have already been over."

"I would have died…" Vivi started to tremble as it became clear just what her bull-headed decision would have meant if Luffy hadn't put his foot down. Her friends would not only have had to give her a sea burial, but her country would inevitably fallen to Crocodile. Now Luffy paled as well.

"That's right." Kureha knocked back another bottle of ale, "Luckily for you, you came to me. It would have taken ten days for the medicine of another quack doctor to fix you up, provided they even managed to diagnose you properly. And you'd be bedridden for the entirety of it. With my medicine you'll be up in just three."

Vivi looked like she was going to argue, but apparently learned to pick her battles after a quick glance at Luffy, "Thank you for helping me, doctor Kureha."

"You're welcome." The old-young woman replied, an honest smile on her face for once, "Now you on the other hand." Her tone was dark and morbid, "Are the luckiest woman alive. If you had gone to any doctor other than me…"

Robin swallowed heavily, "My diagnosis?"

"You were infected by a disease that generated a response from the World Government that was worse than the Amber Lead incident." Vivi and Robin sucked in horrified gasps, while Luffy cocked his head in confusion.

Chopper look similarly confused, having not yet heard from his mentor about this disease, "Doctorine, you've never told me about the Amber Lead Incident. What is it?"

Kureha looked a little surprised herself at her student's admission, before shrugging. But before she could speak, Robin did, "The Amber Lead Incident… there was a city called Flevance in the North Blue. They mined a beautiful white mineral called Amber Lead which made the city incredibly affluent. But one day, a disease broke out in the city and it was put under quarantine and eventually destroyed by the World Government. Was there more to that story?" She addressed Kureha.

"There was." Kureha confirmed, "The Amber Lead itself was toxic, but the disease was not communicable like the World Government claimed it to be."

"What?!" Vivi gasped, "But then why-"

"The disease was genetic. Caused by the Amber Lead itself. Accumulation of it in the body was passed on from parent to child, and so successive generations needed less and less of it to be effected by the disease." She then growled, a look of real anger on her face, "But the quacks in the medical community wrongfully diagnosed it as a spreadable disease, leading to the quarantine and eventual eradication of the entire city and its people. The World Government was also involved in the cover up, because they kept the trade of Amber Lead high until it became unsustainable by the population."

Chopper looked horrified and Luffy looked angry, but not surprised. Vivi on the other hand looked murderous, angrier than anyone had ever seen the blue-haired woman in her life, so much so Chopper raced away to hide behind Kureha despite knowing intellectually that Vivi was bedridden.. But before she could build up a head of steam, an equally angry Robin – who had far too many reminders of her own past from the reveal of the truth of that incident – asked again what she had been afflicted by in rather clipped tones.

Kureha shook her head, "Look at me getting distracted. What you were infected with was not a bacteria, but a fungus. An ancient and malevolent strain of fungus called cordyceps." Neither of the girls knew what that meant even if Vivi had a vague look of disgust on her face, "This was a disease that the World Government started doing everything in their power to wipe out almost eight hundred years ago." Robin gasped, sitting up straighter, "When it came to their attention and once they realized how serious it was, they burned the world trying to get rid of it. Even a whisper of it reaching their ears had them deploying the navy with instructions to burn the place to the ground. Anybody even in the same city as an incident was hunted down and killed, before having their corpses burned. Entire islands disappeared in their zeal to eradicate this disease."

"That's awful!" Vivi exclaimed, horror outpacing anger now. "WHY?!"

"It's because of what the disease does." Kureha said gravely, "It starts as a high fever as your immune system tries to fight it off. Then it progresses into the extreme hypersensitivity Robin displayed. It does that because movement hampers its ability to take over its host, so it prefers to keep them as still as possible. Your moving her around despite the agony was one of the things that helped her. Beyond that, it has stages where it takes over your cells while the body tries to mount attack after attack to fight it off. That manifests in the cycles of being awake and in agony and asleep and locked within your own nightmares. Somniloquy is also a possible symptom." Robin stiffened; eyes wide. Something that did not go unnoticed by her crewmates who shared a look.

Kureha continued, having missed the interaction, "Eventually though? You wake up one day and you're right as rain." She grinned malevolently, "Or at least that's what it looks like. In actuality your symptoms vanish once the disease has already won. Your immune system has been hijacked to work for it, not against it. It even replaces your nervous system, essentially taking over your body while it grows unhindered and feeds on your internal organs."

"I'm going to be sick…" Vivi muttered, looking green.

"You're not the only one." Robin answered back, looking as pale as an unmarred sheet of paper.

"Kakakakak! You feel nothing. You think you're perfectly fine, because all the while it releases chemicals in your body. Eventually once the other organs have been nearly depleted, it goes for your brain. And then you start to change. The shyest, most introverted person in the world would find themselves drawn to massive gatherings. All to release the spores in your sweat into the atmosphere. Eventually though, you have nothing left to give it, and the fungus erupts violently from your body, splitting you open. And even then, it's not done. Even in death, you're still the Cordyceps slave. Your former body continues to be able to move like a living corpse, going around attacking people until your muscles and tissues rot too much to be capable of it. Only then are you free. After you've already infected thousands of others."

Every single other person in that room looked horrified. 'Never thought I'd agree with the World Government about anything.' The thought swirled in Robins head while she remained ghost white, eyes wide in horror. And she wasn't the only one there to think that.

Kureha threw her now empty bottle in the trash again, making them jump, "For centuries, my mentor's mentors and so forth tried tirelessly to create a cure for the disease. The succeeded, roughly five hundred years too late. They were the only ones trying to cure it rather than simply trying and failing to annihilate every trace of it. And since the World Government always does such a bang-up job, my predecessors kept meticulous records redundancies in case something was missed." She smirked at Robin, "Like I said… luckiest woman in the world that you came to me."

Robin swallowed, "Excuse me for not feeling very lucky…" She shot back a bit grumpily.

"Kakakakak!" Kureha's laughter was the only sound left in the room.

-]|[-

"Nice family you got." Nami deadpanned, spinning her staff and laying it across her shoulders.

"Feh. The little bastard hippo head is just lucky he got me first." Musshuru growled as he spat out a bit of blood and rose to both feet, "I went along with his plans because he got me off that accursed island. That was the extent of what I needed from him."

"Wow, you're a real piece of work, aren't you?" Nami scrunched up her face in disgust, "I'd say I feel bad for attacking him in sorta retribution, but I really don't."

"It doesn't matter what you feel, stupid hippo head." Musshuru growled, "because soon you won't be feeling anything at all! Die!" He blurred before vanishing in a burst of speed, appearing where Nami was with his hands already glowing purple. "Spin Drill!" His hand started to spin like a real drill, flecks of spores flying off of it. He jabbed at Nami, looking to spear her through in one move.

Nami vanished in her own faster blur, leaving behind an afterimage of herself to take the blow. Musshuru snarled as her form disappated and he whirled around. Nami had a smug smirk on her face, "That blow you took from the asshole must have slowed you down, ugly!"

Inwardly however, she had very different thoughts, 'Damn it! My legs are still killing me from doing that shitty Geppō marathon because of those shitty overgrown bunnies! I'm not going to last long in a speed fight!'

She stopped, 'Wait… why am I fighting like a Neanderthal again? Damn it Luffy what have you done to me?' Smirk widening,, she started spinning her staff, releasing some heat balls.

"Grrr, hippo heads should just die!" Musshuru snarled, "You peasants exist only to serve royalty at our pleasure!" He leapt high in the air, performing and acrobatic maneuver and coming down on Nami like a sack of bricks with a heel kick.

She had a look of panic on her face, before his foot split her right in half.

"What?!" Musshuru gasped as Nami's form wavered like a mirage, before his eyes went white as a punishing blow from her staff crashed into the back of his head.

"I serve at the pleasure of one person: myself!" She said cheekily, backing away rapidly with another Soru as Musshuru started stirring and whipped himself to face her.

"If spores in the air don't work on you, then eat this you stupid hippo head!" Musshuru snarled at her and placed his hands on the ground, "Run Hypha!"

"Oh gee, I wonder what will happen if I stay on the ground?" Nami snarked before she leapt into the air, upon which a fungal mass erupted from where she had been standing and chased after her. A quick pump of one leg had her flying overhead after the signature thwack of Geppō.

"Shade Dance!" Musshuru hadn't been idle and stuck his fingers on both hands towards Nami. Tiny little bullets of purple started firing from his fingertips, streaking through the air and filling the darkening sky with an ominous glow.

"Shit!" Nami said, before using Geppō again; not to stay in the air but to control and direct her fall back towards ground. 'Damn it, I shouldn't have tased the asshole for so long! I drained too much power and its taking forever to recharge!' She ground her teeth, before reaching into her pocket surreptitiously and drinking one of the antidotes she'd stolen from Wapol, 'I hope this isn't a mistake! Mirage Tempo!'

Her mirage continued to hop around, while Nami herself headed to the ground. She then used Soru and braced her arm muscles, "Shigan: Yari!" She cried out, remembering the technique Luffy had started teaching them before this whole mess started. She really had no idea what she was doing and knew it wasn't going to work, but hey, if it hurt this ugly moron like hell it was worth it, right? Musshuru had been perfectly distracted by her mirage and so was caught completely off guard as her staff rammed straight into his face, right in the center of the burned hole from where Wapol had shot him. She heard the ribs snapping with sickening cracks as Musshuru hacked out a glob of spit in agony as she drove him into the snow. The two dug a furrow into the snow as they slid forward from the sheer amount of speed Nami had hit him with. When they slowed to a stop, Nami let out a sigh as she stepped back to acknowledge her handiwork. She scowled when she felt the staff vibrate a minute amount, indicating that it was charged enough for an electrical tempo again. "Oh, now you're charged?" She groused, not noticing Musshuru twitch.

He rolled himself around with difficulty, "Cross Shade!"

Nami cursed as she dodged, but was not pretty tired and she slipped, getting smacked and scratched up from the impacting spores, "Mushushushu!" he stopped laughing to hack and cough, spitting out some blood, "J-just like a p-peasant to celebrate before winning!" He shakily tried to sit up, "Enjoy my p-p-poison, you stupid hippo head."

Nami growled, furious with herself for not having finished the job. Even with the antidote she'd taken beforehand, she still didn't feel great. Her stomach was rumbling and not from hunger, and her limbs were a little bit numb. "Lucky for me your stupid brother donated some antidotes!" She snarled as she assembled her staff, spewing out the various kinds of elemental balls.

"W-what?!" Musshuru gasped, watching as his poison failed to kill the woman attacking him.

"Thunderbolt Tempo!" She screamed. Musshuru's screams followed.

-]|[-

"Robin."

Robin didn't know why that one word made her stiffen up, but it did. She glanced over at Vivi in the other bed, "Yes, Princess?"

Vivi smiled a little wanly over at her, "How are you feeling?" Robin almost deadpanned at her over the question, but Vivi let out a weak little giggle before she could respond, "I'm still a little too wired to sleep right now due to the medicine, but I'm feeling a lot better."

'Right, the medicine rather than the story about the zombie fungus. Let's go with that.'Robin smiled, relaxing a little bit into her pillows, "The painful sensitivity is mostly gone. Kureha said it would never go away entirely. But I'm feeling much better as well. I'm glad…"

"You didn't sound glad when Luffy caught you." Robin's smile wiped from her face at her words, "You sounded like you resigned yourself to death." Vivi eyed her with none of the heat from the previous weeks on the ship. She eyed her with nothing but compassion, "No, perhaps that you even wanted to die."

Robin's lips clicked shut, her face schooling itself once more, "You're just imagining things, Princess. Neither of us were in a good state the past few days."

"More you than me. I was just dying. You were reliving a nightmare every time you closed your eyes." Vivi countered, and then asked something that almost shattered Robin's composure, "Who was Saul, Robin?"

Robin couldn't help scrunching the sheets in shock, "Where did you- the sleep talking." She cursed inwardly as she answered her own question.

Vivi smiled a little self-depreciatively, "Not like either of us had anything better to do than lay in bed. That name came up quite often." She said, "Ohara as well. A 'Professor Clover' too. Nothing that the rest of the crew could link together without context, and I didn't recognize the name either, though I'd heard of Ohara before." Robin looked vulnerable, her eyes elsewhere, "You're from there, aren't you? What happened to you, Robin?"

"…" The dark-haired woman stayed silent.

Eventually realizing the woman wasn't going to answer, Vivi groaned as she lifted herself up and stood off her bed, drawing Robin's attention again. She stumbled and Robin looked even a little alarmed at the possibility of her falling, but the Princess admirably made her way over and sat on Robin's bed before taking one of her hands with both of hers, "Prin- What are you?"

"What is it that you want with Alabasta's Poneglyph?" Robin sucked in a gasp as if Vivi had punched her in the chest, making Vivi wince as she nearly crushed her hand with her deceptively strong grip.

"You?! I!" Robin's composure seemed to shatter at that question at this time; the woman unable to even make a complete sentence for a few seconds.

"You didn't speak of it in your nightmares." Vivi told her, "But having been on a ship with you for a few days already, I paid attention to you when you spoke with Brogy. It was a piece of the puzzle the rest of the crew were missing."

Robin goggled, before starting to break out into anguished laughter, "You… we never thought you would know of it. Only your father. Only the King. You-"

"…Really? That would be an excellent way to lose something your family has protected for centuries." Vivi deadpanned, "I've known of it since I was a little girl and could understand the danger it posed. If we passed on the secret in any other way, all it would take is one untimely death in the family and knowledge of its location and contents would have been lost."

Robin looked embarrassed for never having considered that, "Oh Ra, can you… can you read the damn thing?" Vivi suddenly gasped out, the thought having appeared in a burst of inspiration, "That- that's it isn't it? You can read the Poneglyphs, can't you?"

Robin swallowed heavily, looking for something in Vivi's face. Finally, she nodded minutely.

"Oh Robin…" She put her hand over her mouth, squeezing the skin a little bit. So many things made more sense now. Why Robin had such a high bounty put on her head as a child under false pretenses. Why Ohara had been destroyed. "You don't really want to resurrect that bedamned weapon, do you?"

At that, all of the was gone from Robin's eyes, extinguished like a candle under a tsunami. "Weapon? That's what it talks about? You… you know that for sure?"

"It's been passed down since our family began." Vivi shook her head, "Of course, there's a chance details were mixed up here or there, but I doubt the message could have changed that much. All that rock contains is the location of Pluton."

Her head rocked back, dropping into her pillow as she bit her lip, squeezing down on Vivi's hand hard enough to make the Princess wince again. "Twenty years…" She said hoarsely, eyes watering, "Twenty years I've searched… only to be disappointed again, and again, and again."

Everything came to a boil. The bedamned thoughts of companionship that had wormed their way into her heart once more the past few weeks. The honest, legitimate friendship the crew had extended her. The care they had for her when she was sick. The secrets she'd spilled unintentionally. Luffy saving her when it could have cost Vivi everything. Vivi losing her animosity and speaking to her with empathy… and the bitter disappointment that rose in her knowing her journey had been for nothing,

"We were scholars! We never wanted to hurt anybody! We just wanted to learn history." Her grip was crushing Vivi's fingers, but the Princess held in the cry of pain, staring at the other woman in shock…shock, and rising understanding. "All we wanted was to know what happened in the Void Century! To learn what happened during the hundred years simply missing from history! And… and…" The grief was plain on Robin's face now "They killed everybody and burned the island to the bedrock… I was the last… and this was on my final chance. I've never been so close to one in twenty years! I've… I've failed them. I've failed all of them!"

"You haven't anyone failed yet!" Vivi said sharply, shocking Robin back to lucidity after her impassioned breakdown, "I know it won't give you what you want, but I promise you Robin, once Crocodile is defeated I'll put you in front of that damned stone myself. Even if it isn't what you want, maybe there will be something. A clue of some kind!"

Robin looked gobsmacked, "But… But why? Why would you help me?" Her face scrunched up as she struggled to keep from crying again, "All the awful things I've done! All the work I put to ruining your home! The cruel way I made you think Igaram was dead! Why?! Why would you ever help me?!"

Vivi opened her mouth to respond, before her mouth clicked shut and a very Luffy grin crossed her face, "What are you, stupid?" Robin again had that 'slapped-by-a-trout' look on her face as Vivi deliberately quoted the man who had saved both their lives, "You're my friend, right? That's all the reason I need."

"…Vivi…" Robin said her name for the first time, not even realizing she was doing it.

Vivi's smile turned… pained… "Though we'd be… better…friends if I could… maybe… have my hand back?"

Robin's eyes dipped to where Vivi's fingers were turning purple in her grip. She let go as if scalded. Vivi cradled them, turning from Robin and silently screaming as she tried to gently massage some feeling back in.

Watching this, Robin couldn't help but start to laugh, stuttering out an apology, "Laugh it up." Vivi grumbled good-naturedly as she flopped beside Robin on the bed, laying down with her and actually nuzzling against the other woman's shoulder, "Honestly Robin, for someone so smart you're being pretty dumb. You haven't been everywhere in the world yet and you're already giving up? You're on the perfect crew to accomplish your dream!"

At first confused by Vivi suddenly turning insulting, now Robin was really confused, "What do you mean?"

Vivi yawned, finally starting to crash again as she got comfortable, "Luffy wants to be the Pirate King, doesn't he? The World Government would burn the world to keep the Void Century secret if what they did to Ohara was any indication. Where else would the only record of it be found other than an island they want absolutely no one to ever find?"

Message delivered and her last ounce of energy expended, Vivi was softly snoring in seconds, unable to see the punch-drunk look of wonder appear on Robin's face at her words.

-]|[-

"I told you!" Chopper roared, teeth looking very un-reindeer-like and more shark-like as he screamed at Luffy, "I'm a reindeer! I have a blue nose! I'm a monster and I don't belong with humans! I can't join you! Why aren't you afraid of me!"

"And I told you, you don't even rate a one!" Luffy said adamantly, "Some of the tanuki on my home island kicked the crap out of the tigers!"

"I'M A REINDEER, NOT A TANUKI! AND WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ISLAND DID YOU LIVE ON?!" Chopper screamed again.

Luffy started to snicker, "Shishishi, it was fun when gramps wasn't around to throw me down canyons or fly me in balloons as training." Chopper goggled at him, "You want a real monster, look at gramps! This one time he punched a tiger so hard the mountain behind it deformed and has a permanent fist mark on it that's bigger than the castle door."

"No way! That's impossible! You're just messing with me!" Chopper squealed, though his eyes were shining like mini stars.

"Nope! Gramps was super strong! Course, I'm super strong too. I could destroy one of these mountains pretty easily too!" He glared off at one of the distant peaks, "In fact… maybe I should! Stupid mountain trying to keep me away from the doctor…" He shook his head, "Anyway, I refuse your refusal! Let's be pirates together, Chopper!"

"I…I can't! I… I don't belon…g… with-" He trailed off, sniffing the air, "That scent!" He jumped up, "Doctorine!" He changed forms instantly, racing back into the courtyard and in the door. Luffy followed, wondering what was going on. But he grinned, having seen a third form out of Chopper at this point; the full reindeer form! "Doctorine! It's Wapol! He's back!" Chopper said as he skid by the open door where Robin and Vivi were recovering.

"That so?" Kureha sighed as she got up.

"What's going on?" Robin asked quietly, not wanting to wake Vivi.

"Looks like this country's 30-going-on-3 king is back." Kureha said lackadaisically, "Nothing you need to worry about. Just stay there and rest."

…

"It's just as I left it!" Wapol yelled gleefully as Robson crested the mountaintop and he landed in front of his old home, "It's finally time to reclaim my castl- What the hell is that?!" He growled, switching moods at the drop of a hat, "A pirate flag at the top of my castle?! WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS NONSENSE?! WHERE IS THE SACRED FLAG OF DRUM?!"

"That old rag?" Kureha stepped outside, flanked by Chopper, "I burnt it. This castle is Hiriluk's mausoleum now. You have no place here."

Wapol audibly ground his teeth together, "How DARE you!" He roared, "Burning Drum's flag?! I should have dedicated more resources to finishing the purge! But it was foolhardy of you to move into my castle!"

"Drum died with your father." Kureha smirked at him, "You're a useless old relic of a bygone age. And I had no interest in this useless rock. It was all this one's wish to have a memorial for Hiriluk here." She jerked her thumb at Chopper.

Wapol gaped, before snarling, "You!" He looked like he was about to blow like a teakettle, "You're that damned monster Dalton let escape! This is perfect. Once you two are dead, all the vermin I wished gone will out of my sight forever!"

Chopper assumed his hulking human form, "Dr. Hiriluk wanted to save this country. I won't let you step one foot inside this castle, Wapol!" He yelled, before pointing skyward, "And I'll never let you take down his symbol of faith!" Hiriluk's pirate flag waved proudly in the air.

"You can't stop me!" Wapol's mouth opened grotesquely, stretching far wider than any mouth ever should, "Tongue Cannon!" Indeed, his tongue took on the round shape and metallic sheen of a bored cannon, before it ignited in a fiery retort.

Chopper could hardly react, gasping in horror as the cannonball sailed above his head and watched as it exploded in front of the flag, engulfing it in a blaze. He ground his teeth together, tears starting to creep into his vision, "You monster! How dare you do that to the doctor's pirate flag!" He exploded forward in reindeer form, before reaching Wapol and switching instantly to human form once more, latching onto Wapol's chest with one fist scrunched in his clothing and the other reared back in a fist, "He even tried to save all of you too!" Before unloading a righteous punch, Dr. Hiriluk's words rang in his ears and he hesitated. "I won't hurt you! Leave this island forever!" He demanded loudly, causing Kureha to lose her smirk for the first time.

"Chopper no! He can't be reasoned with!"

"But… I…!" Chopper made the mistake of taking his eyes off his target.

"Hmph." Wapol grinned sickly, before opening his mouth wide once more, "Tongue Cannon!" Chopper was blown back by the point-blank explosion, blood starting to mat his fur down as he lay spread eagle in the snow, groaning. "Maaahahahaha! You can't defend a thing!"

"I CAN!" They all whipped their heads up, and Wapol's eyes popped out when he saw Luffy standing in front of the completely unharmed pirate flag with his arms crossed, not even soot on him. "You're a fake! You call yourselves a pirate but you're afraid of risking your life! You don't know the meaning of this flag and someone like you could never destroy it!"

"Luffy…" Chopper groaned as rolled to his feet.

"A meaning to the flag? What worthless words!" Wapol spat, "It's good that you're here, Straw Hat! I still owe you for that whore hitting me!" He raised his arm and it formed into a cannon, "Now die! You and that worthless rag!" Another cannonball shot forth, racing towards Luffy.

Luffy uncrossed his arms without a lick of concern, though his countenance darkened considerably from the insult to the girls on his crew, and casually backhanded the cannonball. Eyes on the mountaintop popped out of their sockets as it reversed course and shot directly back at Wapol, who twirled in a circle in his panic and was struck head on. He crashed to the snow, bleeding from the mouth in a rictus of pain. Luffy roared out, "A man who raises this flag is one who says he'd rather die than see it fall! We would prefer death over running from our dreams! It's not something you fly on a whim! The Skull and Crossbones is a symbol of faith! A coward like you who runs to and from the sea can never make it fall!"

Chopper stood in awe, finally understanding both what Hiriluk had once told him as well as what Luffy himself had been saying. Of course, Luffy wouldn't be afraid of him. He was a monster too! "So, this is a pirate…" He mumbled in utter awe.

…

Inside the castle, Robin had her arms crossed and her eyes closed so she could watch the entire confrontation from the dozens of eyes she had conjured on the outside of the castle. She bit her lip as a shiver ran through her body.

…

"Oii, Chopper!" Luffy called down, drawing his attention again, "To raise this flag means to risk your life! Do you have it in you?! Can you put your life on the line for your dreams?!" He grinned madly at his future doctor, eyes shining with confidence in the reindeer.

Chopper took a deep breath as he turned and stared at Wapol, who was getting to his feet shakily. He reached into his pocket before calling out, "My name is Tony Tony Chopper! It was the name given to me by the greatest doctor in the world! He may have forgiven you, but I won't!"

Wapol spat a bit of blood out, "You damn monster! I am the King! Do you have any idea what it means to go against me! I'll kill you all! Wapol House!" He started creaking and clanging and letting out steam as he grew bigger and both arms transformed into cannons. His midsection grew a door of all things, "Take this! Arm Cannon barr-"

Chopper hand not been idle. The moment Wapol had called him a monster once more, he had pulled a golden ball out of his pocket and crunched it with his teeth, "Rumble! Jumping Point!" He called out, before his form changed into a completely new one. He had thick legs and was tall and lanky. He crouched down before leaping at Wapol so hard the kickback blew drifts of snow behind him. Midair, he shifted forms into another one with incredibly thick shoulders, biceps, and triceps. He looked like he skipped leg day (and core day, actually) every time he exercised. Wapol developed a flop sweat and gaped as Chopper landed and threw a hoof forward, "Arm Point! Kokutei Roseo!"

Wapol heard alarm bells ringing in his head as a hoof-shaped indent buried itself into the tin armor he was wearing in a very… uncomfortable area. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Chopper felt no sympathy as Wapol keeled over, his eyes popping out of his skull and delivered another devasting punch directly into his face. Another indent buried itself into Wapol, this time in his cheek. "I told you to leave! Why wouldn't you listen!" Chopper asked him.

"Y-you damn-!" Wapol sprang up, "Gunpowder Indigestion!" He detonated the gunpowder he had eaten earlier in the day and exhaled a flamethrower at Chopper, who squeaked in shock – a very odd sound to hear from the hulking reindeer man – and shrank down into his default form; Brain Point. "I'll kill you and make you die slowly! How dare you hit your king in the kintama!"

"You're no king of mine!" Chopper roared, "And I'm a doctor! I know exactly where to hit to make it hurt!"

"I dunno," Luffy mumbled to himself as he stood there on the roof of the castle with his legs crossed, "I don't think you need to be a doctor to know that one…" he sweated, his forehead a little blue from shared male misery. An odd feeling, seeing as he knew Wapol deserved every bit of pain he had coming.

Wapol again blasted a sparking flame at Chopper, who dodged and once again assumed his Arm Point form and raced towards Wapol. Wapol swung one of his massive cannon arms at Chopper, who ducked underneath it and landed a devastating Kokutei Roseo directly to his enemy's armpit. "ARGH!" Wapol cried out as he felt his arm instantly go limp, the limb refusing to even move from the impact to the sensitive nerves there. Chopper didn't miss a beat as he swung another hoof at his opponent's thigh before swinging again at his knee.

Wapol crumpled to his knees before Chopper seamlessly switched to Jump Point and then to Human Point, "Heavy Hammer!" He clasped his hands together and swung them down as hard as his muscular arms would allow, smashing them into the very top of Wapol's skull. Wapol's head straight up sank into his chest with a sickening squelch. Chopper panted on top of Wapol's back as the man wavered and fell forward, his butt sticking straight in the air.

Chopper backed away and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. Another mistake as Wapol trembled, before a cannon ripped itself out of the seat of his pants and blasted Chopper again at point-blank range, "Argh!" Chopper was blown back and dug a trench into the snow.

"Chopper!" Luffy and Kureha called his name in worry, but Chopper shakily got back to his feet, causing them to sigh in relief.

"Maaahahahaha!" Wapol didn't mind his wardrobe malfunction as the cannon retreated and he got up, "Take that you lousy ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?! WHAT ARE YOU!?" He roared in shock as he turned around and saw Chopper no worse for wear, beyond a bit more blood matting his fur down. He growled, before his lower jaw dislocated and pushed forward, enveloping his head and then making a U-turn and starting to envelop his entire body. Finally, his jaw dropped to the floor as even the spying Robin's composure was broken at the sheer ridiculousness of what they had seen. "Done!" The chin jumped up on its own and revealed Wapol after it unraveled, "Wapol Slim!" He stood posing like a Hero.

"EHHHHH!?" Everyone else stared in shock and no small amount of abject horror at the sight.

"Now! RUNNING AWAY!" Wapol turned and dashed at the castle at a surprising speed, "Once I get into my armory you won't stand a chance!"

"Oh no you don't!" Chopper transformed into his Walk Point, racing after the skinny tyrant. He quickly caught up and seamlessly switched into his jump point again, flipping over and aiming a sliding kick which took Wapol's legs out, sending the man tumbling to the floor. Chopped turned as he finished sliding, making sure Wapol had no chance of escape.

"Damn you! Tongue Cannon Barrage!" He opened his mouth and started blasting cannonball after cannonball at Chopper, who desperately dodged until Wapol started aiming at his feet instead, taking another nasty hit. "Why! Won't! You! DIE!"

Chopper shrank down into his Brain Point, "Luffy told you! A coward like you won't take down Hiriluk's flag! I can't die as long as you're still here and causing this country's sickness!" He cried out, "I'm running out of time! I need to end this!" Chopper panted as he put his hooves up in a diamond pattern in front of him, "Scope!"

"Ooooohhhh! Is he going to fire a laser!?" Luffy grinned in excitement up above, only to be disappointed as Chopper dropped his hooves. "Awww! You got me all excited Chopper!" He started to whine, making the reindeer sweatdrop.

"Don't distract me, stupid!" he yelled at Luffy before swelling up into Arm Point again, "This is the end Wapol! I've found your weakness!" He sprang forward. "Kokutei Roseo!" Wapol tried to dodge, but the repeated injuries to his legs had taken their toll. Wapol Factory did not fix his injuries, merely restructure his body. His skinniness had only aggravated his wounds, so his left leg gave out and he started to fall.

A sickening ripping sound rang through the air. Chopper turned around and gasped, bonelessly shrinking down and slumping to the floor as his time expired and as he watched Wapol desperately clutch at his throat, red leaking between his finger. His hooves weren't like human fingers. Chopper had torn Wapol's throat out from the misplaced attack.

Chopper watched in horror, "I…" Wapol expired, slumping and staining the snow in a growing circle of red. His back stopped moving as his breath ceased.

"Chopper." Luffy landed next to him and kneeled down, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I know how it feels. The same thing happened to me ten years ago." He said quietly as Chopper continued staring at the corpse, "You are not a monster."

"But… but! I'm a doctor! I should be helping people! I killed him! I killed him!" Chopper started to sob as Kureha watched, her eyes closed as the older boy did her job.

"It was an accident. You didn't mean to." Luffy sighed, hugging the furry reindeer, "I'm going to tell you the same thing Shanks told me all those years ago… "Sometimes, you're in a fight that you can't escape without the reaper getting his due, one way or another. Sometimes, it's just bad luck. An accident, just like this. … Sometimes, killing will be unavoidable. Perhaps someday, it'll be the only way to protect those who you love. And if that day comes Chopper, you must not hesitate… or you'll wish you hadn't. Because that hesitation could be the difference between embracing your loved ones or burying them…" Do you understand what I'm saying?" He asked quietly.

Chopper slowly nodded, still crying. He was going to respond when a new voice rang in the air, "Luffy!"

Luffy's eyes widened and he stood, watching as Nami raced towards him waving an arm, "Nami?! When did you get here?" His eyes bugged out, "Zoro? Usopp?! Val! What's wrong with your arm!?"

"Oi, what am I, chopped liver?" Sanji grumbled as he didn't get a call out. Miss Goldenweek – who Luffy didn't know – didn't get anything other than a quizzical tilt of his head as an acknowledgment before he moved on.

"Never mind that! How are Vivi and Robin?!" Nami skid to a stop, "Hello, who is this cutie?" She asked, leaning forward and looking at Chopper.

"C-cutie?!" Chopper stammered at her.

"They're both fine! The doctor did great work!" Luffy grinned at her, "And this is Chopper! He's our new doctor!"

"B-baka! I haven't agreed to leave yet!" Chopper yelled at him, happy for the momentary distraction.

"The fact you said 'yet' means it's already over Chopper." Nami grinned at the reindeer, "Just enjoy the ride."

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing that we'll have Emergency Food Supplies." Sanji said with a hidden grin, taking a drag of his cigarette.

"What the hell?! I'm not food, asshole!" Chopper screamed at him, before his attention was drawn by Nami again.

"…Is that Wapol?" She asked as Chopper flinched, "How the fu- you know what? I'm not even going to ask. This asshole even shot his own brother in the back! Good riddance. I just don't understand how two complete monsters could possibly come from a king as sweet as Dalton tells me his father was."

"Enough about that!" Luffy said, "How did you get up here?!"

"Oh, the villagers fixed the tram!" Usopp grinned and pointed behind him as more people disembarked. "Nami saw us"

Dalton staggered past him and stared at Wapol's corpse, "I'm sorry your Highness… I'm sorry I couldn't save your son from himself!" He closed his eyes as he said a prayer, before opening them and looking at Chopper his eyes widened, "Blue nose… you're that creature…" Chopper's teeth clenched as Dalton dropped to his knees, "You… you fought for us!" He bowed to Chopper, drawing a look of shock from the reindeer, "THANK YOU! THIS LAND WILL BE BORN AGAIN!"

"W-what?!" Chopper gasped out.

"WHAT IS THAT THING?! MONSTER!" Another of the villagers yelled out, fumbling with his rifle to get it to bear, driving another stake of anguish into Chopper's heart. He moved to run, but as one the Straw Hat Pirates glared at him, causing him to freeze.

"I thought I told you…" Luffy said quietly, staring into his soul, "Don't hold one again if you don't have the nerve. That's my doctor you're insulting." It was the same guy who had shot at them back on the wharf hours ago. The man trembled like a leaf and again voided his bowels.

Everyone wrinkled their noses and Chopper covered his own, the stench immediately overwhelming him. "Come on. Let's go! I want to see Robin and Vivi!" Nami exclaimed, "Oh Luffy, when are they going to be strong enough to travel again? We really should get going."

Kureha finally spoke, having been just an observer until now as Luffy had been handling Chopper well, and she hadn't wanted to interfere, "Not for another three days, at least. I'm the one that cured them."

"That's too long!" Valentine protested, wincing as her arm twinged in pain. Chopper saw it and immediately turned into his Human Point to get to work on her. He undid her wrappings, sprayed some medicines on her arm, before rewrapping it in seconds. "Wow, I feel better already! Thank you Chopper!"

"B-Baka! Praising me won't make me happy, you know!" Chopper smiled stupidly again, making the rest of the crew snicker.

"Anyway," Nami said after a giggle, "We really don't have that amount of time. Vivi's homeland is undergoing a civil war right now. We don't have time to waste!"

"Doesn't matter." Kureha glared at the crew, "I only discharge my patients when they're cured or they're dead. Not to mention the matter of my fee. I'll be taking all your treasure as my payment."

"Ohohohoho!" Nami laughed, her eyes shadowed, "Them's fighting words." She stomped forward, lightning springing from her eyes. "That's a whole lot of trash you're spewing, old bag."

"Old bag?!" Kureha drew a butcher knife as Nami twirled her staff, "I'm in my youthful 130s! Don't get cocky, little girl!" Everyone sweated at the tension enveloping the group as they got in each other's faces, "You don't think I deserve to be paid?"

"Of course." Nami said, backing up without a care, "You helped our friends after all. But you can't keep us here and you're crazy if you think you're taking all of my, errrr, that is our, Beli!" The 'our' seemed like it physically pained Nami to say.

Kureha snorted, "Think that all you like." She sneered before turning to Dalton, "Dalton, where's the armory key? I've been searching for it since Wapol left."

"Armory key? What do you need that for?" Dalton asked her quizzically, "In any case, Wapol always kept it on his person."

Kureha smiled, though it fell when Nami smirked and started twirling a key on her finger, "Oh you mean this key? I stole it from fatass over here when he attacked me down below." She smirked at Kureha, "If you want it so badly, how bout you waive that fee for us?"

Kureha growled, "Fine, you give me that key and I'll waive the fee on the two of them if it's the right one." She grabbed the key and started to stomp away, "But you can forget about leaving early! I need to monitor them and make sure they won't relapse!"

"Don't worry about that. Chopper can take care of them, right Chopper?"

Kureha turned around, glaring at her, "You think you can just steal my reindeer?"

"I want to go with them, Doctorine!" Chopper blurted before he could stop himself.

"You WHAT?!" Kureha snarled, "Don't be ridiculous! Whoever heard of a seafaring reindeer!"

"I may be a reindeer, but I'm a man too!" Chopper yelled back.

"DON'T BE RIDICULOUS!" Kureha snarled, "A crybaby like you a 'man?!' You'll leave over my dead body!" She threw one of her knives at Chopper, making everyone's eyes bug out.

Luffy caught the knife negligently between two fingers and tossed it back to her, "Oi, don't threaten my doctor."

"Tch." Kureha scoffed, recognizing that Luffy was more than fast enough to ruin her goodbye. She sheathed her blade and whipped her finger at the soldiers, "You lot, come with me! We're going to the army and setting up the cannons! And you!" She pointed at Dalton, "Go get in bed! Those doctors may not have been quacks but you're still sick! Did this moron really set Musshuru free?!" She pointed at Wapol.

"I took care of him. He was just as big an asshole as Wapol." Nami said with a shrug, "He liked lightning about as much as he liked fire, I think." The townsfolk balked at the tiny slip of a woman saying she took care of their biggest threat. "Think I saw the Lapahns heading in his direction when I left." Even she looked a little unsettled at that.

"Hmph. Good riddance. That was a Devil Fruit that should not exist." Kureha grumbled, "Let's go! And those two better be in bed when I get back!" She shot over her shoulder as she walked away, followed by the townspeople without so much as a backwards glance at Chopper.

"What did she say? Was it, 'Go get Robin and Vivi and get out of here?'" Nami asked Luffy with a grin.

"Yep, that's what I heard." He grinned back, and they raced away with the rest of the crew following them.

Chopper stood there, clenching his hooves as he stared at Kureha's shrinking back, "Thank you for everything, Doctorine." He bit his bottom lip as his hat dipped over his eyes, twin streams leaking down.

Luffy burst into the room and stopped as he saw Robin smiling with her winter clothes already on. He grinned widely, "Ready to go, Robin?"

Robin smiled at him, her expression lighter than they had ever seen it before, "I am… Luffy."

…

"Is this okay. I feel kind of bad that Chopper is pulling us." Nami asked out loud. They had raced down the mountain in record time while Nami cradled the sleeping Vivi protectively.

"It's okay. I pulled Doctorine down the mountain all the time. I'm used to it." Chopper was in his Walk Point and his powerful muscles did the work of a full team of reindeer.

"Oh my, what's that?" Robin gasped as she saw something fire from the mountain.

Chopper stopped and they all turned around. Chopper started to sob as an explosion happened above the drum castle, and brilliant pink snow started to fall. "WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! DOCTOR!" He yelled as he understood. Hiriluk's dream had been fulfilled, and Kureha was giving him the sendoff she couldn't bring herself to say in person.

The Straw Hats all smiled, knowing it was a new beginning for not only the young reindeer, but for the entire Drum Kingdom itself.

No.

The Sakura Kingdom.

-]|[-

FINALLY got this updated. Hope you all enjoy! It was sitting incomplete on my drive for a couple months. Finally got the One Piece hamster to get on his wheel. The fat, lazy fuck.

My intended translation for 爆竜波(Bakuryūha or Bakuryū-ha) is Exploding Dragon Wave. 爆龍波was another one I managed to come up with. The google translation I did for 爆破 龍 波was the closest one, though it didn't have the accompanying rōmaji. "Blasting Dragon Wave." In any case, if anyone fluent in Japanese can help me settle on the correct one to use, I would very much appreciate it.

Now, question for you guys: What is the deadliest combination of Devil Fruits you can think of? Pretend your main character (Probably Luffy, but really it's whatever) is special like Blackbeard and can eat more than one (canon) fruit. (Specifically, three, because that's how many I think he has. Doesn't necessarily have to be one of each type, though do try not to do three of the same.) Do try to be a bit creative with it! I'm well aware a combination of Goro Goro/Pika Pika, Gura Gura, and whatever Kaido's fruit happens to be named would probably be the most straight-out OP one.

Remember to come join the server! Discord . gg / 3ZwnRbh

I often discuss new ideas on it and have had QUITE a number that are either getting snippets in Mysteries of the Seas / Quantity of Quirks or are planned to eventually become full fics. I've got quite a few new ones (Including an almost-finished Izuku/Rumi snippet) coming soon-ish, so keep an eye out for them! You also get to have a voice on the rare occasions where I put polls up for the server or ask for opinions on things I'm not quite sure on.