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Rose's POV
We were trying to keep as many people from killing each other as we could.
"Look!" Sanji yelled, pointing to the sky.
Looking up, I saw Crocodile flying through the air.
"Where'd he come from?" Chopper wondered.
"Doesn't matter, we won," Usopp told him.
"THEY WON!"
And then, by some miracle, a sheer force of luck, or God, it started to rain. For the first time in three years, rain was falling in Alabasta. The rain did something to the warriors on an emotional level because everyone stopped fighting once they saw that it was pouring.
"Stop Fighting!" Everyone turned to look at the clock tower where Vivi was.
"They heard her," Nami pointed out the obvious.
Vivi tried to explain that there was no need to fight, but they had trouble believing her. I couldn't blame them; they had seen their king attack a town. One of the generals came out and told the Royal Army to put down their weapons.
"You put your weapons down, Rebel Army."
We turned and saw that Mr. 8, or rather, Igaram, was still alive.
"It's that guy from Whiskey Peak," Zoro pointed out.
"How?" I thought out loud. "You got blown up!"
Igaram presented a kid who explained to everyone that they had been tricked, that the king who attacked Nanohana was really Mr. 2.
"I will explain it clearly, but you must all put down your weapons," Igaram told the crowd.
"Come on, let's go," Zoro said, commanding everyone to follow. He had to drag Usopp, but we got moving.
After we rounded a corner, we found a man carrying Luffy and Steve.
"Who are you?" He asked me.
"Well, you see, that big guy on your back is my little brother, and the other one's my friend," I told him.
"So you're the pirates who brought Vivi back," he said, looking at us.
"Everyone! Daddy?!" I heard Vivi yell, running up to us.
"DADDY?! You're the king!" Sanji screamed.
The king set the unconscious Luffy and Steve against a building nearby. "Had it not been for these two, I'd be dead. They fought Crocodile and then each carried someone out of the collapsing temple. They were poisoned, but it should be neutralized."
Vivi kept hounding us to get our wounds looked at, but Zoro pushed her away. "Stop bothering us. Go to the square."
"He's right," Usopp told her. "You stopped the uprising; now the king and the princess need to close the book on this incident."
"We prefer to stay out of politics," Sanji told her.
"Can we go to the palace to rest? I'm beat," Nami asked.
Vivi nodded, and we all passed out right there in the street.
We'll get to the palace later.
Steve's POV
Ugh, my head.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a room full of beds.
"You're awake!" I looked up and saw Vivi sitting near the bed I was in.
"He's awake." Chopper ran up and started poking me with a bunch of tools.
"Where are we?"
"In the palace, you and Luffy have been asleep for three days," Rose explained.
Three days. Damn, that's a long time. Explains why I'm so hungry.
The others filled me in on some of the things that had happened after Luffy and I beat Crocodile. Apparently, the Marines helped them stop the bomb, Igaram was alive, and it rained for the first time in years. After a few hours of tests, Chopper still wouldn't let me get out of bed.
"I slept great!" Luffy yelled, waking up from his three-day nap and began slapping his head. "Where's my hat? I'm starving, when's breakfast? Where's my hat? Hat, Hat, Hat!"
"It's right next to you. A guard found it," Usopp explained.
Energetic as always.
"Luffy, it's late, almost time for dinner. We were asleep for three days. I only woke up a few hours ago," I explained, trying to calm him down.
"Three days! So I missed fifteen meals!"
What kind of math is that? Five meals a day? That's actually less than I thought it'd be.
Zoro showed back up, and Chopper yelled at him for training with his injuries. Zoro wasn't the only one who was messed up. Everybody had injuries. Nami had a hole in her foot, Usopp had apparently been beaten with a bat, Sanji looked like he got mugged, and Rose had burns on parts of her body, plus a gash on her shoulder.
The door opened and a woman walked in. "Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes."
This lady looked just like Igaram but wasn't. Vivi explained that this was his wife, Terracotta. Luffy devoured the 'snack' she brought for him and told her he would need three days' worth of food for tonight.
We waited a half hour before we were shown into the dining hall. Of course, Luffy didn't waste any time shoveling food into his mouth. The guards thought that he never learned any table manners.
They're right.
Dinner was pretty hectic. Most of it was spent screaming and eating. Zoro kept demanding more booze. I think Chopper almost choked at one point. But regardless, it was fun and exciting. Eventually, the singing and dancing died down and the King invited us to use the bath.
"Normally we only use it in the rainy season," he explained as we walked into the extravagant bath.
Usopp and Luffy went running in and slipped and banged their heads. Everyone cleaned themselves. I sat alone in the back of the bath, thinking.
What was she talking about? My dream has too many enemies. Just who is this Nico Robin?
"Hey, Steve." Luffy ran over. "They're all looking at the girls' bath, wanna come?"
"No thanks." Luffy ran off to join the others in their disgusting habits.
Not like any of them can ever compare to her. Not to mention, one of the girls on that side⊠Is⊠my⊠Sister⊠THOSE PERVERTS!
I jumped out of the bath to go and teach the freaks a lesson for looking at Rose like that, but when I got there, they were already out cold.
"What happened to you guys?" I asked.
"Happiness!" Sanji answered.
"Thank you all." The king said.
"Pervert."
"That's not what I meant!" Cobra bowed to us. "Thank you, on behalf of this country⊠Thank you."
"Your majesty, kings shouldn't bow," Igaram told the king.
"I'm not speaking as a king. Here in this bath, I'm speaking as a father. So from the deepest part of my heart, thank you."
We got dressed and headed back to the room we were all staying in. We came to the decision that we were going to have to leave tonight. The Marines were becoming more and more aggressive, and we were going to have to get out while we could. We were packing our things when the Transponder Snail rang.
Sanji answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's me, the Okama!" the phone said.
Sanji immediately hung up. The phone rang again and I picked up this time.
"What?" I said, the lack of patience I had going through the line.
"Listen, don't call me Mr. 2. I don't want the Marines tracing this call."
He knows he just called himself Mr. 2.
"Get to the point," I told the man.
Mr. 2 went through a long, drawn-out explanation about friendship that ended with him saying he stole our ship.
"Where the hell are you!" I yelled into the speaker.
"On your ship, of course, duh."
Mr. 2 told us he took the boat up river and would be waiting for us not too far from where we were right now.
"Let's go," I said. "We're moving out."
"Everyone⊠Please tell me what I should do?" Vivi asked.
Nami told Vivi we'd move the ship past the east coast tomorrow, and if she wanted to come with us, that would be the only time she'd be able to. Vivi lent us some ducks so that we could get back to the Merry before morning. Along the way, the others talked about Vivi potentially coming with us, but I was unsure.
The seas are rough; it's not really a place for a princess like her.
We made it back to the ship just before dawn. Mr. 2 was there, complaining about how we made him wait. We climbed aboard, ignoring his whining. We unfortunately had to thank the man because he moved the ship away from the Marines.
"You really are a nice guy!" Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper sang as they danced with Mr. 2.
"You came to us to help you escape the Marines, right?" Zoro asked, finding the man's true intention.
"That's right. This is the time when we should help each other out," he said, having jumped back to his own ship.
"Let's go!" Nami yelled. "We have a schedule to keep."
We were making our way around the island when the Marines attacked, firing huge metal spikes at our ship.
"I'll bounce them back!" Luffy said.
"No, you won't! That'll kill you!" I said, punching his head.
"We're going to sink if we don't do something!" Chopper yelled.
Hand-to-hand, we're strong. But in a naval battle, we're at a disadvantage.
Usopp managed to sink two of the ships. The ones he sunk had faces I recognized, Jango and Fullbody. Apparently, they were both low-ranking Marines now.
"Mr. Bon Clay, sir! We have a problem, it's Black Cage."
"Not Hina!" Rose yelled. "She's a Marine like Smoker. She's got nasty Devil Fruit powers; we can't fight her! We have to get out of here!"
"We should go south," Mr. 2 suggested.
"Go however you want, we're going this way," Luffy told him, pointing in a different direction.
"We have a meeting at twelve o'clock on the east coast," Nami said.
"We have to pick up a friend," Luffy explained.
When Mr. 2 heard we were taking a huge risk for a friend, he was touched.
"Listen, men!" He turned to his crew. "If we can't sacrifice ourselves in the name of friendship, then how can we call ourselves Okama! Listen, Straw HatâŠ"
Mr. 2 explained that he'd take his crew and ship one way to draw the Marines off our ship. He used his Clone-Clone powers to look like Luffy and sailed off to confront the Marines.
"Good luck," Mr. 2 said as he turned away.
We waited three minutes like he said and sailed off for the east coast. Luffy, Sanji, Chopper, Rose, and Usopp were over on the back of the boat, screaming how they'd 'never forget him.'
"We still have a problem," I said. "Mr. 2's plan wasn't foolproof, look."
In front of us was another Marine ship, but this was much smaller than the last few. Luffy took care of the cannonballs they shot, and the rest of us dealt with the one who boarded the ship.
"GET LOST!" Luffy yelled, punching men left and right as the Marine's ship sank.
As we approached the shore, we could hear Vivi giving a speech. It was becoming more likely that she wasn't coming with us.
"She'll come, I just know it," Luffy insisted.
"The Marines are coming!" Usopp warned.
"Come on, Luffy, we have to go. Vivi is just different from us," I told him, trying to pull him off the railing.
"EVERYONE!" we looked to the shore and saw Vivi and Karoo standing there.
Luffy told Nami to turn the ship back so we could pick up Vivi.
"I'm here to say goodbye." Most of the crew besides Zoro and I looked shocked by her decision.
"What's she talking about?" Luffy said.
"I can't go with you. Thank you for everything you've done. I want to go with you, but I really love this country, so I can't leave! If we ever meet again⊠Will I still be your friend?!"
"You'llâŠ" Luffy started to answer Vivi, but I grabbed his face and tackled him to the ground.
"Don't answer her. The Marines already saw her standing there. If they find out Vivi is our friend, she'll be finished." I looked up at the others. "We leave without a word, understood."
Luffy did as he was told. He stood up and turned his back to Vivi. Luffy then thrust his hand into the air and pulled off the bandages we used to tell ourselves apart from Mr. 2.
This mark on our arm, is a sign of our friendship!
The rest of us followed Luffy's lead, knowing that Vivi would get our message.
She was a bit of a pain, but⊠I think I'll miss having her around.
We sailed away from Alabasta. Everyone but Zoro and I was depressed about Vivi's departure.
"If you wanted her to come so much, you should have forced her," Zoro said.
"She's our friend and a princess! We're not gonna kidnap her!" Rose snapped.
I let him bicker with the others about Vivi. I had my own missing woman to think about.
I guess I'll never see her again. This sucks.
"We made it out to sea. Good work."
Wow, I must be desperate, now I'm hearing her.
"AHHH!" I heard everyone start screaming.
When I looked back, I had to blink a few times to see if it was real. There she was, Miss All-Sunday, Nico Robin. Everyone was screaming about how the woman had infiltrated the ship. Sanji was awestruck by the beautiful woman.
BACK OFF! SHE'S MINE!
"So you're alive," I said as she swatted everyone's weapons away with her powers.
"You say that like it's a surprise. Don't you remember what you did to me, Mr. Steve?"
I know what I want to do.
Sanji started choking me, thinking I had violated the woman in some way.
"What are you talking about?" I asked her.
"I remember very clearly. You need to take responsibility," she told me, a bit of a playful smirk on her lips.
Responsibility?
"Just what is it that you want!" I yelled.
"Let me join your crew."
"EHHHH?!" everyone was dumbstruck by her request.
"You forced me to live when I wanted to die. Now I have nowhere to go, so let me stay on your ship," she said.
"Okay," I said, allowing her onboard. Everyone else wasn't thrilled with my choice. "Don't worry, she's not as bad as you all think."
Usopp asked the woman a series of questions. I learned that her real name is indeed Nico Robin; she's been an archaeologist since she was eight, and the same age she became wanted by the Marines. She is also skilled in assassination and has the powers of the Flower-Flower Fruit, which allows her to grow limbs anywhere she wants.
She's not only beautiful, she's smart, too.
The others took a little time warming up to Robin. Luffy and Chopper took a liking to her fairly quickly, as did Sanji. A bribe, and Nami was on her side. The only ones holding out were Zoro and Rose.
Steve's POV
We settled back into our routine as the day went on. Robin came up to my seat near the figurehead.
"Hello, Captain," she said.
"You can just call me Steve, you know," I told her. "Or Handsome, actually, you can call me whatever you want, Gorgeous!"
God, I'm desperate.
"You're just as lively as the rest. Don't think I don't see you. Looking at me with those piercing eyes," she said, leaning in close.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I smirked. "Sometimes when I see a pretty lady, I just can't look away. You happen to be one of those ladies. We should do something together sometime."
"Keep acting like that and you're gonna get yourself hurt," she said, getting serious and backing away.
What the hell? We had a flow going, why'd she stop? Was it something I said?
"Is this hail?" I heard Usopp say.
"Huh?" I looked up and it seemed like there was dirt falling from the sky.
"There's something falling from the sky!" Rose yelled.
The closer the small object got, the larger it became.
"It's a galleon!"
The ship slammed into the water and sent our ship flying around the waves.
"Luffy, protect the ship. She can't take much more!" Sanji yelled.
After a minute or so, everything calmed down and we settled back in. We were trying to figure out how a ship had fallen from the sky when Nami let out a high-pitched scream.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"The Log Pose is broken! It's pointing up and not moving!" she explained.
"It's not broken," Robin told her. "It locked on to a magnetic field. It's locked onto a Sky Island."