Etchings

Cherry walked out onto and off of Morgans' balcony with a very satisfied expression. She had spent the last hour or so spilling every little detail that she could about the Big Mom pirates, both what was true and what was… 'unsubstantiated' as Morgans would put it. She may or may not have made up a fair few rumors about certain individuals that she didn't care for.

For example, did you know that Sweet General Smoothie would sneak into the laundry room at night to wring out some 'special' juices for her personal use? Morgans did now, and with any luck the whole world would soon enough.

Anyways, today turned out to be quite the productive day, so she reckoned that she had had enough messing with people and might just turn in for the night.

She took out her vivre card book and gave a quick Life Sense of the island, then paused.

"Wow, didn't know Brooke had it in him…" Cherry muttered to herself on a rooftop.

Cherry snickered at her own joke that no one else heard. She knew that Brook probably hadn't willingly climbed into Big Mom's bed with the woman. She barked a loud laugh as she sensed her crew taking turns trying to rescue him from the monstrous woman's clutches.

"I suppose I'll head on over to see if they need any help," Cherry skipped across the rooftops back to the Whole Cake Chateau.

As she reached the outer wall near the top floor, she went ethereal and slipped beyond the wall and into Big Mom's bedroom, where the woman snored 'peacefully' in her sleep.

It was Pedro's turn to make a daring attempt to swap a fake Brook out with the real Brook. Brook apparently wasn't as keen on aiding their rescue attempts as much as he would like to continue sleeping.

Pedro narrowly dodged when Big Mom instinctually slammed her fist down on the place where he had been tiptoeing towards her and he booked it back to the mirror where the others were watching with bated breath.

Cherry's eyes met with the tied up Brulee, who squirmed in her bindings to no avail. She was the only one who had spotted Cherry out of the group so far.

Cherry floated around the room and slipped inside the mirror when the group let Pedro back inside using Brulee as a sort of key.

"We should get Nami, nobody is a better thief than her!" Chopper suggested.

"This wouldn't be thieving, but kidnapping though, wouldn't it?" Carrot said.

"Stealing a corpse would be thieving, so technically?" Pedro added.

"He's light enough for Nami to lift, so that's good enough regardless of whatever technicality applies here," Cherry said.

"Ohhh, that makes sense. Let's go call Nami, then!" Chopper agreed.

After a beat of confusion, the three of them turned to look at Cherry behind them. Carrot and Chopper nearly screamed, if not for Pedro covering their mouths in a timely fashion.

"Cherry, don't sneak up on us like that!" Chopper complained.

*grunt* Brulee rolled her eyes.

"Are you able to get Brook out of there, Cherry?" Pedro asked, getting straight to business.

"I suppose so. He seems awfully comfortable right where he is, though?" Cherry said.

Cherry motioned towards Brulee to indicate that they should let her through. When they pushed Brulee into the mirror, Cherry zipped across the floor, taking the fake Brook with her, grabbed Brook in one swift motion, placed the fake back where he had been, and brought her skeletal friend back into the mirror in about 5 seconds flat.

Brook didn't even wake up until he was already in the Mirro-world, which was fortunate because he woke up screaming.

"Help! I'm being kidnapped!" Brook shouted.

"Shut up, you idiot!" Chopper whisper-screamed back.

They all turned to look back into the bedroom and fortunately Big Mom had not stirred from her deep slumber.

"""Phew!""" Chopper, Carrot, and Pedro heaved a sigh of relief.

"You startled me! Can't a gentleman get some shut eye around here?" Brook bemoaned. "Although, I don't have any eyes! Yohoho!"

"In any case, it is good that you survived," Pedro looked genuinely relieved, in part because he was the one who left Brook alone to attempt the theft whilst he left to distract Big Mom's forces.

"Oh, yes, of course! It got rather close there for a second, what with Big Mom herself coming across me. Fortunately, she seemed to prefer a talking skeleton over a dead one and decided to 'collect' me." Brook concurred.

"Let's go meet up with Luffy and the others! They're apparently waiting for Sanji to come meet them outside," Chopper said, eager to get as far away from the most cannibalistic of the four emperors.

The others agreed, even Cherry and Brulee surprisingly. The former because she was waiting for the opportune moment to fight Big Mom and the latter because all of Big Mom's children had a healthy fear of her. Of course, Brulee would prefer not to be used as a taxi service for the enemy, but her logical mind simply did not agree with her instincts at the moment.

It didn't take long to find the mirror installed the the giant tree homie, King Baum, which Brulee had thought was terribly clever of her when she first installed it, but now regrets it deeply.

"Nami!" Chopper called out. Soon, Nami appeared in the glass.

"You guys are okay!" Nami looked delighted to see them.

They streamed out of the Mirro-world and back into the real world, nestled in the branches of King Baum.

"I'm glad you were able to save Brook, I hope it wasn't too much trouble," Nami said.

"Cherry certainly made it look easy and us like we're incapable," Pedro smirked.

"What matters is that we're all still safe and sound. We can try to steal the poneglyph another time," Nami said, her mind already preparing to squeeze every detail out of them to make her own plan for the heist.

"Oh, right!" Brook opened up his skull and pulled a large piece of folded paper out and handed it to Nami. "I believe this belongs to you."

They all gawked at the paper, then at Brook, then at the paper again. Even Cherry was impressed.

"Hahaha! You actually got it!" Pedro couldn't help but laugh.

Nami was already hastily unfolding the papers, careful not to tear anything. She could hardly believe it, even seeing the etchings clear as day before her eyes. She and the others exploded in excitement, whilst Brulee was inwardly shocked that this bumbling crew had actually stolen etchings of their poneglyphs.

It was then that Luffy and Jinbe appeared. Luffy asked, "What's going on? Are we having a party?"

"Nothing much, Captain. Just that the weirdo skeleton that you invited to join the crew on a whim went and got the poneglyph etching right out from under Big Mom's giant nose." Cherry explained.

"Of course he did. He said that he would, didn't he? Hahahaha!" Luffy didn't seem surprised in the slightest, though he was very happy about how it turned out.

Everyone congratulated Brook for his incredible achievement, somehow making the skeleton's cheekbones blush from the praise.

"In that case… perhaps I've earned a peek at your panties?" Brook asked tentatively.

Nami refrained from hitting him in this joyous moment, but she wasn't going to let the request go unanswered. "Hell, no!"

Brook wasn't even looking at her, though, so Nami turned to see where his eye sockets were pointed. She caught Cherry as she finished putting her robes back in order. "Cherry?!"

"What? It was a small request for a job well done," Cherry chuckled and winked at Brook, whose entire skull had got a violent shade of pink.