Fairy

Cherry was pretty pissed off right now. She didn't reckon that Doflamingo was the type to perv on young girls, so Rebecca's overly revealing armor was probably only meant to humiliate her. She wasn't about to accept any of his excuses, though.

'I need to calm myself…' Cherry thought to herself.

The method by which she would do so was to hunt down one of the 'fairies' that were so well known in Dressrosa. Cherry figured that the small creatures scurrying around with unusual strong life forces was a good bet. There was even one sneaking around the colosseum.

Cherry disappeared in a flash of high speed movement and snatched something small as it tried to scurry past her feet unnoticed.

"Geh! I've been caught by a human!" The small creature cried out.

It looked like a tiny person with a big head and pointy nose, its body was pear shaped and had a bushy tail. The hair and tail were both hot pink and it wore a green sock hat, coat, and pants with little brown boots.

The 'fairy' struggled with all his might in Cherry's grip, but even with his physical strength that was greater than a grown human man's he could not budge Cherry's fingers even a little bit.

"Well, hello there. Aren't you just the cutest?" Cherry said.

"Huh? Do you really think so?" The fairy paused in his struggling and asked innocently.

"Of course!" Cherry assured.

The fairy burst into tears. "The human thinks I'm cute! Even though I'm a man! This is the worst day of my life!"

Cherry was caught off guard by the sudden outburst. She hadn't intended to make him cry, although she secretly thought it was kind of funny.

"Don't cry, I was just teasing you. It's my favorite pastime, teasing strong masculine men." Cherry lied.

"R-really?" The fairy's crying slowed down.

"Sure." Cherry affirmed.

"Oh, so I am a big strong manly man! I knew it! HAHAHA!" The fairy seemed to gain tremendous confidence.

"Yes, and that big strong manly man is currently trapped in the dainty little hand of a weak and helpless woman." Cherry said with a smirk.

"Ehhhhh?! S-so I'm really not a big strong manly man after all…?" The fairy started to tear up again in despair.

"I'm just teasing you again, of course. I'm obviously super strong myself." Cherry smirked. She liked how horrendously naive the little guy was.

Cherry brought the fairy into an empty room where they wouldn't be disturbed. Once the fairy had calmed down again she asked, "What are you doing here in the colosseum? Stealing weapons?"

"We don't steal anything!" The fairy insisted. "And I can't tell you what I'm doing here, it's a secret!"

"You can trust me, I won't tell anyone." Cherry said.

"Huh? Well, if you won't tell anyone… No! It doesn't matter if you won't tell anyone because I can't tell you either!" The fairy was almost fooled.

"Your boss said it was fine for you to tell me, though?" Cherry said, thinking that surely he wasn't THAT trusting.

He proved her wrong immediately. "Oh, the general said it's okay to tell you? Okay then, but why didn't he just tell you himself?"

"You know how busy he is. Just didn't have the time, you know?" Cherry said, still reeling from the little fairy's naivety.

"Yeah, that makes sense! I was here on my secret mission to monitor the movements of the Doflamingo family in the colosseum. Can't afford any surprises during the attack on the factory, after all." The fairy said with a smile.

Cherry was inwardly surprised. She wasn't expecting to get a hold of information about the factory this way. She was just wasting time before the tournament and calming herself so she didn't tear somebody's arm off during the fight.

"I haven't introduced myself yet. My codename is Nightmare, so you can just call me that for now." Cherry said.

"I'm Meppi!" Meppi said cheerfully.

"Right, where was the factory again? I forgot." Cherry said.

"Right below the colosseum, silly. You must be really forgetful, huh? Haha!" Meppi 'reminded' her.

"I sure am." Cherry said.

Cherry burned through some vital energy to boost the range of her Life Sense downwards. Life Sense normally used living entities as buoys to increase its range, so it hadn't extended far enough to find the factory before.

Sure enough she found a lot of people, a few of which were devil fruit users, and more of those autonomous toys deep beneath the colosseum. More importantly she found tanks of that delicious S.A.D. juice and a few hundred wonky devil fruit signatures. About nine out of ten of the wonky devil fruits seemed to be useless, with only the curse remaining intact.

She supposed that she should tell the others where the factory was, but she knew that Law would want them to leave as soon as they destroyed it. Dressrosa was a beautiful place (with lots of beautiful women) and she wanted to explore it a bit more.

She could always do it later, of course, she had a long life to live after all. Putting off the things you want to do until later just felt like no way to live to her. She's spent hundreds of years of her last life cooped up in a hot sweaty forge, so she wanted to set aside some time to mess around.

Cherry sighed and decided to do the right thing after all. With her band of misfits and miscreants, things would probably go sideways even if they had the information anyways.

"Um, could you put me down?" Meppi asked timidly.

Cherry set the little fairy boy down on the ground and gave him a military salute. "Good luck with your mission soldier!"

Meppi made an attempt at mirroring the salute, only for it to look rather odd with his unusual proportions. "You as well!"

Meppi scurried away with remarkable speed for his little legs, Cherry chuckling at the sight.

"Right, then." Cherry expanded her Life Sense across the city to find the transponder snail the search and destroy group had on them to fill them in on the factory's location.

Except they had split up. Franky was with Kin'emon heading out of the city… and Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji were inside the colosseum. Because of course they were.

…

Ten minutes earlier.

Rock'em Sock'em's sock jaw dropped when he saw a familiar face hidden behind an obvious fake beard. He didn't know why Luffy was here, but he sure was glad to see him. Also extremely embarrassed, but definitely glad too!

Nevertheless, he wouldn't let this chance slip away. Thunder Thigh needed all the help he could get, his army of Tontatta just wouldn't cut it against Doflamingo and his crew.

Rock'em Sock'em straightened his top hat (not unlike a certain pipe wielding blond's) and tuxedo that let him walk about freely, as it was fairly normal for stuffed toys to wear clothing. He also made sure his bandolier of grenades was properly secured under his coat, he couldn't risk someone spotting them.

He approached the group of black coat and bowler hat wearing old men that stuck out like a sore thumb with hasty steps.

"Psst!" Rock'em Sock'em made the classic 'I'm trying to get your attention, but discreetly' noise and tugged at Luffy's shorts.

"Hm? A monkey wearing a monkey suit?" Luffy said, causing Rock'em Sock'em to snort. He knew that Luffy would get the joke.

"Hey, Luffy…" Rock'em Sock'em motioned for him to lean down, then whispered something into Luffy's ear.

Luffy's face contorted with confusion, embarrassment, and shock. "H-how do you know that?!"

"Because I'm actually Sabo." Rock'em Sock'em lied.

"Ehhhh?!" Luffy exclaimed, drawing more attention to the group.

"Let's go somewhere more private to talk…" Rock'em Sock'em led him, and the rest of the curious group of fake old men, into an isolated alleyway.

"Who's Sabo, Luffy? Do you know him? What did he say to you?" Franky asked, thinking maybe this was something that came before he joined up with the Straw Hats. He looked at Sanji and Zoro and found they were just as ignorant as he was.